A Vendor Is Missing or Shows N/A in Parts and Service

In Parts & Service, a vendor is an ordinary contact record carrying the Vendor role — the same record you see on the Contacts screen. Three places look that record up three different ways, which is why one vendor can appear in the Vendor field on a part, be missing from the Vendor dropdown on a purchase order, and still read N/A in the Vendor column of Parts Inventory.

Questions this answers

• "I just added a new vendor while building a purchase order, but now I can't find them in the vendor dropdown on the part screen — where did they go?"
• "One of the parts on my parts list shows the vendor as 'N/A' even though I know I picked a vendor when I set it up — what does that mean?"
• "If I update a vendor's phone number over on the regular contacts screen, will that change show up when I search for them as a parts vendor?"

This article is only about vendor records behind the Vendor field on a part, the Vendor dropdown on a purchase order, and the Vendor column on Parts Inventory. It is not about purchase order statuses, receiving, or ordering — for that, see the purchase order articles.

Where parts vendors actually live

There is one vendor record, shared with Contacts. Whichever way you create it, the result is a contact with the Vendor role.

• On a part record, the Vendor field has an Add Vendor option that opens Create New Vendor. Only Company Name is required; Phone, Email, Address, City, State and Zip are optional. This writes the contact straight away.
• The Import Parts screen has a New Vendor link under Default Vendor, and the sublet list has the same option. A vendor added from Import Parts becomes searchable immediately, but its main contact record is written a moment later by a background process. In the rare case that background step does not finish, the vendor searches fine on the part screen while the Parts Inventory list has nothing to show for it.
• You can also add the vendor from the Contacts screen with the Vendor role, exactly as you would any other business contact.

Three screens, three different lookups

A vendor you just added is not in the list you expected

First, a correction that catches people out: the purchase order screen has no option to add a vendor. New vendors are added from a part record, the Import Parts screen, the sublet list, or the Contacts screen. If you believe you created one while building a purchase order, you created it on one of those other screens.

When a vendor you know exists will not appear, work through this in order:

1. Check you are on the right screen for the right list. The purchase order dropdown is limited to your current lot. If the vendor was created while you were switched to another lot, it will not be in that dropdown, even though the part screen finds it.
2. Check the vendor is still active. Open the vendor on the Contacts screen. An inactive vendor is hidden from both the purchase order dropdown and the part screen's search — it stays visible only where it is already the saved selection.
3. Use the search rather than scrolling. On a part record, click the magnifying glass to open Vendor Search and page through the full list. The inline dropdown shows only the first page of matches.
4. Reload the screen. The purchase order dropdown is built when the screen opens, so a vendor created after that will not appear until you leave and come back.

The Vendor column shows N/A

N/A means no vendor record could be found for the vendor saved on that part. It does not mean the vendor is inactive or on another lot — that lookup ignores both. In practice this happens when the part was brought in by an import and its vendor never finished being written as a contact.

To fix it:

1. Open the part from Parts Inventory.
2. In the Vendor field, search for the supplier by name. If it is found, select it and save the part — the column will resolve on the next load.
3. If nothing is found, the vendor genuinely does not exist yet. Use Add Vendor on the part, or create the contact with the Vendor role first, then select it.

If a whole batch of imported parts reads N/A, do not fix them one at a time. Contact support with an example part number and the supplier name.

Editing a vendor on the Contacts screen

Yes — a phone number, address or email you change on the Contacts screen is the same record Parts & Service uses, and saving the contact also refreshes the copy that the part screen's vendor search reads from. There is no separate parts-only vendor file to keep in step.

If the old phone number keeps appearing after you saved:

• Reload the Parts & Service screen. Vendor details are cached while a screen is open.
• Make sure you edited the vendor that is actually selected on the part or purchase order. Duplicate vendor records with slightly different company names are the usual explanation — open the part, note the exact name in the Vendor field, and edit that one.
• The purchase order print-out pulls vendor address and phone at the moment you generate it, so regenerate the document after the edit.

If the old details still show on a fresh load of the correct vendor, contact support — the searchable copy may need to be rebuilt, and that is not something you can do from your own settings.