Creating, Sending & Closing Supplier Orders

If you source ingredients, decor, or equipment from external suppliers, Univents automatically groups the relevant booking line items by supplier and turns them into a sendable order — complete with delivery time, contact person, and PDF. This article is for anyone handling bookings with external suppliers in an event, from sending the order through to the goods receipt.

Prerequisite: assign a supplier to a product

Univents groups orders based on the supplier assigned to each product.

1. Open Inventory, select the product, and enter the matching contact in the Supplier field.
2. If the supplier doesn't exist as a contact yet, create it first under Contacts.

Products without an assigned supplier end up in the No Supplier group and cannot be sent directly.

Store the supplier's item number

Right below the supplier you'll find the Supplier item no. field. Enter the number this supplier uses for the article in their catalogue — not your own item number.

The benefit shows when you send the order: the line then carries the number the supplier recognises, so they don't have to look it up by product name. Leave it empty and nothing changes — your own item number is shown instead.

Where the number appears:

Two things that save you work:

• Bring it along in the import. The Excel template in the inventory has a Supplier item number column. If your supplier's price list calls it something else — "Bestellnummer", for example — the import still detects it automatically. Details under Importing products.
• Filling it in later works immediately. If you add the number after an order has already been created, it shows up the next time you open the preview or the PDF.

Send an order from the event

1. Open the event and go to the Bookings section.
2. The Supplier Orders section is always visible — regardless of whether you've generated a production list beforehand. If no line items with an assigned supplier are booked yet, it shows a short explanation instead of the order groups.
3. Click Send to [Supplier] on a supplier group, or use Send all open to dispatch all open groups at once.

A status pill shows the current state of each order:

After sending, Univents honestly tells you whether the mail reached the supplier — for example if no email address is on file, the confirmation says so instead of a blanket "Sent".

Set delivery time, contact person, and delivery address

1. Click Edit order details on a supplier group.
2. Enter Delivery and Pickup (date + time).
3. Under Contact person, pick a team member from your team or type a name freely; optionally add a Phone number.
4. If needed, enter a different Delivery address — leave it empty and Univents uses the event venue by default.

All saved details automatically appear in the email to the supplier and in the PDF. Once an order has been sent, the fields become read-only — send the order again to apply changes.

How the supplier confirms it themselves

The order email includes a personal link into the Univents partner portal — the supplier doesn't need a password or their own Univents account for this.

1. The supplier opens the link from the email and lands in the partner portal on the Orders tab.
2. There they see the order with all line items, quantities, and — if set — the delivery date (no prices shown by default).
3. They can accept the order via Confirm or reject it via Decline. When declining, they can optionally enter a reason; this then appears on your side as the decline reason on the order.

If the supplier confirms or declines themselves, the status updates automatically in Univents — you no longer need to click Mark as confirmed.

In the same partner portal, alongside Orders the supplier also has the Overview, Tasks, and Files tabs — a login-free view of everything you share with them. For more on involving partners in general (including other partner roles like photographers or DJs), see Involving Partners in an Event.

Confirm the order and book the goods receipt

1. If the supplier doesn't confirm on their own, click Mark as confirmed on the sent order.
2. Once the order is Confirmed, the Book goods receipt button appears.
3. Enter the quantity actually delivered for each line item — partial deliveries are supported, and the remaining quantity is pre-filled for the next goods receipt.
4. Once all line items are fully received, the order automatically switches to Delivered.

Download the PDF

As soon as an order exists for a supplier (draft or sent), the Download PDF button appears. The PDF contains the item list, event, date, venue, and — if set — delivery time, pickup time, contact person, and delivery address. Handy if you also want to print the order or hand it over in person.

Mark a line item as internal, without billing the customer

Some costs shouldn't appear on the customer invoice, for example when you cover them yourself.

1. In the Bookings tab, open the relevant line item for editing.
2. Turn on Do not bill to customer.
3. The line item stays visible in the supplier order, but is skipped when quotes and invoices are generated automatically. In the manual line-item picker it appears pre-excluded, but can still be added by hand if needed.

How this differs from production lists

Supplier orders go outward to external suppliers. Production, packing, and delivery lists, on the other hand, are internal work lists for your team — for example for the kitchen or a warehouse pickup. Both draw from the same booked line items but serve different purposes. See Creating Order, Packing, Delivery & Production Lists for details.

Orders without an event

Every supplier order on this page is built from an event's bookings. For general restocking or ad-hoc purchases with no event at all — say, triggered by low stock — there's a separate path via the reorder view in Inventory, see Minimum stock & reorder.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the supplier see prices in the order? No. The email and PDF show only product name, quantity, and unit by default — no prices.

Can I still change order details after sending? The fields become read-only once an order has been sent. Send the order again to send updated details to the supplier.

What happens to line items without a supplier? They appear in the No Supplier group and can't be sent directly to a supplier. Each line item there has an Add supplier link that takes you straight to the product to assign one.

My supplier numbers their articles differently than we do — do I have to change our item numbers? No. Enter their number in the Supplier item no. field on the product. Your own item number stays as it is; the order shows the supplier's.

Can I book a partial delivery? Yes. During the goods receipt, you can enter a smaller quantity than ordered for each line item. The order then shows Partially delivered until all quantities are fully received.