# Set up your vendors

Start > Set up · Guide · https://vendordue.com/docs/set-up-vendors

**In short:** Your vendors come from Shopify: every name in a product's Vendor field. A vendor earns once they have a consignor rate. Give most of them your shop-wide terms in one press, and use Vendor setup for anyone on a different deal.

Who: Admin. Where: Vendors.

## Where your vendors come from

You don't add vendors to VendorDue by hand. Every product in Shopify has a **Vendor** field, and every name used there is a vendor in VendorDue, with the products that carry it. A new name in Shopify appears in **Vendors** within a few minutes.

That makes the Vendor field the one thing to keep right. Two spellings are two vendors: "Alder Ceramics" and "Alder Ceramics." with a full stop are different, though capitals and extra spaces don't count.

A sale belongs to the vendor its product named on the day it sold. Changing the field later moves the product's future sales, not its past ones.

### Your own stock

A product whose Vendor field is empty, or is your store's own name, is yours. Its sales are all yours and no vendor earns from them.

## What a vendor needs to earn

A vendor's sales earn them money once two things are true, and **Vendors** marks each vendor with a green tick when both are:

- **They have a consignor rate.** Without one, their sales are recorded and wait. Nothing is owed until a rate is set, and then the waiting sales are worked out with it.
- **At least one product carries their name.** Otherwise they have nothing to sell yet.

A vendor with no rate is in the **Needs setup** tab, with a warning triangle beside their name.

## Give everyone your shop-wide terms

Most shops pay nearly every vendor the same way. Your shop-wide terms are that way: the consignor rate, schedule, holds and agreement you chose in Store setup. To put vendors on them:

1. Open **Vendors > Needs setup**.
2. Press **Set them up** beside "8 vendors have no consignor rate yet".
   Vendor setup opens for all of them.
3. Press **Use the shop-wide terms**, check what they'll get, and press **Save**.

You can also tick vendors in the list and press **Use the shop-wide terms** in the bar that appears. Either way, they follow the shop-wide terms from then on: when you change those in **Settings > Terms**, they change too.

> **Recommended:** In Store setup, answer **New vendors from Shopify** with **Get these terms**. Then a vendor who appears in Shopify later starts earning on your shop-wide terms straight away, marked **New from Shopify** until you look at them.

## Set up a vendor on a different deal

Some vendors are paid differently. In the example shop, Quillfield Goods rents a booth: they keep 90% of each sale and pay $150.00 booth rent on the 1st of every month. Vendor setup sets a vendor up from start to finish:

1. Open Quillfield Goods from **Vendors** and press **Vendor setup** at the top of their page.
2. Choose **Set their own**.
   You go through each step, starting from your shop-wide answers, so you only change what's different.
3. **Consignor rate:** choose **Their own** and type 90. A line underneath shows what they'd get from a typical sale.
4. **Products:** leave it as it is, or give a product its own rate. A product left empty earns their consignor rate.
5. **Schedule, Holds, Agreement:** keep the shop-wide answer, or choose their own.
6. **Charges:** add Booth rent, $150.00, every month, first charged on the 1st.
7. **Access:** add their email to invite them to their own page. See [Invite your vendors](https://vendordue.com/docs/invite-vendors).
8. Read **Here is their deal** and press **Save**.

Nothing is saved until that last press. If you close Vendor setup halfway, your answers wait in this browser and it opens where you stopped.

To set up several vendors with the same deal, tick them in **Vendors** and press **Set up 3** in the bar. Every step then offers **Keep each one's own** too, so you can change one thing for all of them and leave the rest.

## Check a vendor is ready

Open the vendor. Their **Summary** says **Owed now**, **Next payout** and **On hold**, and their **Terms** tab reads their whole deal as sentences, with an (example) sale run through it. If their terms come from the shop, the tab says **Currently using: shop-wide**.

## When it looks wrong

### A vendor is missing

The name isn't in any product's **Vendor** field in Shopify yet. Open a product of theirs in Shopify, set **Vendor** to their name, and save. They appear in **Vendors** within a few minutes, or press **Check Shopify** beside the logo to read your shop now.

If they sold before the field was set, those sales went to whatever name the product had. Fix the field first, then see [A sale went to the wrong vendor](https://vendordue.com/docs/finding-a-sale#a-sale-went-to-the-wrong-vendor).

### The same vendor is there twice

Their products in Shopify use two spellings. In Shopify, change every product to one spelling. The other name then has no products, and you can archive it once it has nothing waiting. See [Archiving vendors](https://vendordue.com/docs/archiving-vendors).

### A vendor says "No products connected"

No product in Shopify carries their name right now. Either their products were given another vendor name, or they were deleted. Set the **Vendor** field on their products in Shopify.

### A vendor's sales aren't earning anything

They have no consignor rate. Open them and press **Vendor setup**, or give them the shop-wide terms as above. Their waiting sales are worked out with the rate as soon as you save, which can take a minute for a vendor with many sales.

## Common questions

**Can I add a vendor who isn't in Shopify yet?** Not by hand. Set their name in a product's Vendor field in Shopify and they appear in VendorDue within a few minutes.

**What happens to sales made before a vendor had a consignor rate?** They wait. When you set the rate, those sales are worked out with it and join the vendor's next payout.

**Do vendors on shop-wide terms change when I change them?** Yes. They follow the shop-wide terms, so a change in Settings › Terms applies to them from the day you make it. Sales already worked out keep the rate they had.

**Can one vendor have a different rate for some products?** Yes. Give those products their own rate in Vendor setup's Products step, or add a rate row on the vendor's Terms tab.

Checked against VendorDue on 2026-10-06.
