How a supplier's products sell

Opening it

The first thing a supplier asks in a meeting is how their products are selling. To answer:

1. Go to Supply chain › Suppliers and open the supplier. For an agent, go to Supply chain › Agents and open the agent.
2. Click Sales in the menu under the supplier's or agent's name, next to Products.

A supplier that sells to us through an agent has its own Sales page too, with only its products.

What the page shows

• This month draws the month so far day by day, added up, against the same month last year (dashed). Year to date does the same month by month.
• The shaded band is the forecast: the rest of last year's period, scaled by how this one is running. On This month that is the days so far against the same days last year; on Year to date it is the last three full months. The band runs from the worst to the best of the last six full months.
• Ahead or behind shows, for each day or month, how far above or below last year the running total is.
• On the right: the total so far, what is expected by the end of the month or year, and, on Year to date, a table of every month with its change on last year.
• Click an organisation above the chart to see only that organisation.
• Per organisation lists what each organisation sold in the last 12 months, how many of the products sold, and how many are out of stock, about to run out or not selling.
• Best sellers, Out of stock, About to run out and In stock but not selling list the products that matter most in each.
• Feedback shows customers' public reviews and refund rate, the notes purchasing marked as shared with the supplier (or agent), and deliveries that arrived short.

Cost or wholesale, and the currency

• At cost values what was sold at what the goods cost us, the figure to share with a supplier. Wholesale is what the organisations' customers paid. Keep it for our own use.
• The currency switch shows the supplier's (or agent's) own currency, or the group's currency (GBP).

Goods one organisation passes to another are counted once, by the organisation that sells them to its customers.

Sharing with the supplier

A supplier can follow its own figures without an account, through a private link:

1. On the supplier's Sales page, click Share with supplier. Only supply chain editors can create links.
2. Choose how long it works for (1, 3, 6 or 12 months). To be safe, tick Ask for a code sent to this email before showing anything and check the supplier's email.
3. Click Create link and Copy, then send the link to the supplier. It is shown only once; Aiku keeps no copy of it.

The supplier's page shows only its own products, at cost and in its own currency (never wholesale), the notes purchasing marked as shared with the supplier, and its purchase orders: the ones sent and not closed yet, and those received in the last 60 days. Drafts are not shown. There is no menu and nothing else in Aiku can be reached from it.

With a code, the supplier clicks Send code, receives six digits at that email and types them in. A code works for 10 minutes; five wrong tries spend it.

Links given lists every link: who made it, until when it works, how many times it was opened and the last places it was opened from. Stop ends a link at once. Make a new one if the supplier still needs it.

Suppliers behind an agent get no link: our cost for their products is what we pay the agent, and the agent already sees each of its suppliers' sales.