Vendors

Free Web App

Vendors are the subcontractors and material suppliers you work with. Keeping this list up to date means their names, trades, and addresses flow automatically into manual bids and give the AI bid chat context for recommendations.

Only Owner and Manager roles can edit the vendor list. Everyone else sees a read-only view.

Adding a vendor

1. Go to Resources → Vendors in the web app sidebar.
2. Click Add Vendor.
3. Fill in the fields:
   • Company name (required)
   • Trade — e.g. “Concrete”, “Hauling”, “Gravel Supply”. Defaults to “General” if you skip it. The list of trades is customizable under Settings.
   • Contact name, email, phone (optional)
   • Address — auto-geocoded to lat/long so the AI bid chat can flag nearby vendors when you’re bidding a job.
   • Status — Available, On Contract, or Do Not Use.
   • Notes and Description (optional, free text).
4. Save. The vendor now appears in the table and is available for bids.

Status options

• Available: default, shows up as a normal option in bids.
• On Contract: flag vendors you’ve already committed to for a period. Useful for visual reminders.
• Do Not Use: hide from normal selection without deleting the record. You keep the history but the vendor won’t surface in AI recommendations.

Active vs inactive

The eye/undo icons in the vendor table let you soft-delete a vendor (sets isActive: false). Inactive vendors disappear from the main table by default but can be restored. Nothing ever gets permanently deleted from the vendor list — always a soft-delete so historical bids stay intact.

Vendors in bids

When you create a manual bid and add a vendor row, the dropdown shows every active vendor as Company Name — Trade. Picking one auto-fills both the company name and trade on the allocation. You then enter the estimated cost and days.

The AI bid chat also receives your full vendor list — including names, trades, and addresses — so it can recommend specific vendors by name (rather than generic “hire a concrete sub”) and flag proximity to the job site.

Vendor ↔ materials pricing

Note

Each material in your catalog can have multiple sources — each source names a vendor and a price-per-unit. That’s how the app compares vendor pricing across materials.

• Go to Resources → Materials to set up pricing sources.
• For each material (e.g. “3/4” Gravel”), add sources with the vendor name and their $/unit rate.
• When the AI bids a job that needs gravel, it can see which vendors sell it and pick the best price.
• The manual bid form can also filter the vendor dropdown to only those who supply a given material.

See Materials (guide coming soon) for the setup.

QuickBooks sync

Business Plus only Web App

If your company has QuickBooks integration enabled (Business Plus plan), vendors can sync bidirectionally with QuickBooks Online. Synced vendors are marked with a QB badge in the table and are read-only for most fields — you edit them in QuickBooks and the change flows back. Only the trade and company logo remain editable in Excavation Expert for synced vendors.

See QuickBooks Integration (guide coming soon) for setup.

Next steps

Equipment Your heavy equipment with rates and statuses.

Personnel Team members, roles, and hourly rates.

Locations Equipment yards and offices for mobilization distance.

Manual Bids See how vendors flow into the manual bid form.