Help / Vendor portal

Create and track shipments

Every shipment you send from the vendor portal pre-stages the receiving clinic's inventory queue. When boxes arrive, the clinic side is match-and-confirm — never re-entry. This page covers the two entry paths (bulk Excel upload and manual single shipment), the destination-grouping logic, and how discrepancies flow back to you after check-in.

Before you start

• You need the vendor_admin or vendor_user role.
• Have your ship-out worksheet ready — one row per lot going out. Columns can be in any order; the mapper handles it.
• Every destination clinic must be tethered to your company. Untethered clinics show as a hard block on the upload preview.

The shipments page

Open Shipments from the vendor sidebar. The page shows every shipment your company has created:

• Status column: draft, shipped, in transit, received, flagged (has an open discrepancy).
• Lines column: shipment line count and destination clinic.
• Actions: open the detail drawer, download packing slip, or void a draft.

Click any row to open its detail drawer with lines, tracking history, and any exception raised by the clinic.

Bulk Excel upload

The upload flow (Create → Upload shipment file, route /vendor/shipments/upload) turns one worksheet into a shipment per destination clinic — matching how most vendor ops teams already work.

Step 1 — Upload the file

Drop your .xlsx or .csv on the upload zone. The page reads the header row and tries to auto-map each column against a known field.

Recognized fields and their aliases:

Field	Common column headers
sku	SKU, Item Code, Product Number, Item #
product_name	Product Name, Description, Item Description
lot_number	Lot, Lot Number, Batch, Batch Number
expiration_date	Exp Date, Expiration, Expiry, Expiration Date
quantity	Quantity, Qty, Units, Shipped Qty
destination_clinic	Ship To, Destination, Clinic, Facility
external_ref	PO Ref, PO Number, Reference, Order Ref

Required for validation: SKU, lot_number, quantity, destination_clinic. Product name and PO ref are optional but strongly recommended.

Step 2 — Confirm column mapping

If a header didn't auto-map, use the dropdown next to each column to pick the right field. The preview shows the first row's value under each column so you can verify at a glance.

Step 3 — Review the preview

The preview groups rows by destination clinic. For each group, you see:

• Clinic name (as it appears in your tether list).
• Line count and total quantity.
• Any rows the validator rejected — usually SKU not found, lot format wrong, or destination clinic not tethered.

Rejected rows show a per-row reason. Fix the file and re-upload, or drop the rows and continue.

Step 4 — Lot integrity check

The preview flags three lot-level integrity issues:

• New lots — this is the first time you've shipped this lot to any clinic. The catalog engine registers the lot on confirm.
• Expiring soon — any lot within 30 days of its expiration date. Consignment products under 30 days trigger an extra confirmation.
• Duplicate lots in-file — two rows with the same lot and expiration but different destinations. Legal, but flagged so you can verify it's intentional.

Step 5 — Confirm the shipment

Click Create shipments. One shipment is created per destination clinic. Each shipment:

• Records the outbound lot, expiration, quantity, and destination.
• Pre-stages an inventory_orders_v2 row plus inventory_ordered_products_batches_v2 lines on the clinic side — their receiving queue is ready before your carrier hands off.
• Sends a notification to both the destination clinic's inventory admin and its assigned providers.

Manual single shipment

When you're sending a one-off (patient-specific ship-out, urgent replacement), a full Excel upload is overkill.

1. From Shipments, click New shipment (manual).
2. Pick the destination clinic.
3. Add lines one at a time — SKU, lot, expiration, quantity.
4. Optional: paste a tracking number and carrier.
5. Save & ship. The record follows the same pre-staging flow as bulk uploads.

Save a column mapping template

If your ops team runs the same spreadsheet every week, save the mapping so future uploads skip the mapping step:

1. On the mapping page, click Save mapping as template and give it a name.
2. Next upload, pick the template from the dropdown above the mapping table. Every column pre-populates.

Track a shipment

The shipment detail drawer has five sections:

• Summary — status, carrier, tracking number, expected delivery date.
• Lines — every SKU/lot with its shipped and received quantities. Discrepancies show a red bar.
• Timeline — created → shipped → in transit → received / flagged. Each transition shows who and when.
• Discrepancies — any exception the clinic flagged at check-in (short quantity, wrong SKU, damaged lot). Each has a photo and note.
• Documents — packing slip PDF (auto-generated) plus any attachments you or the clinic added.

Discrepancies

When a clinic marks a discrepancy at receiving, the shipment moves to flagged on your side and a notification lands in your Requests inbox.

To resolve:

1. Open the shipment detail; read the discrepancy note and view the photo.
2. Take an action from the drawer: - Accept and reship — creates a new draft shipment for the missing quantity. - Accept as short-ship — the clinic receives the received quantity; the balance is written off. - Dispute — opens a thread in Messages with the clinic's inventory admin for reconciliation.

Draft, void, and rerun

• Shipments in draft status can be edited or voided from the row menu.
• A voided shipment leaves an audit row and removes the pre-staged rows on the clinic side.
• Rerunning a failed bulk upload does not create duplicates as long as the source file's PO ref / external_ref is unchanged — the upload validator flags any row whose lot has already been shipped to the same destination.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	What to do
"Row 4: SKU not in your catalog"	SKU missing from vendor catalog	Add the SKU on the Catalog page first, then re-upload
"Row 12: destination clinic not tethered"	You haven't been onboarded with that clinic	Ask the clinic to send a tether invite, or invite them from Directory
Preview shows 0 valid rows	Header row mis-mapped or file has extra top rows	Re-check the mapping; delete banner rows above the header before saving
Clinic sees "no shipments pending" after upload	Notification delay or clinic filtering to a different tab	Have the clinic refresh Receiving and check the Pending tab
Duplicate shipment created	Two uploads with different PO refs but same lots	Void one draft before it ships