Each vendor gets a reference (VEN-1, etc.).

Fields

• Name, Email, Phone
• Address, City, Country
• Tax ID, Website
• Contact Person
• Type (Parts, Services, Both)
• Rate (hourly for services)
• Status: ACTIVE / INACTIVE

Link vendors to parts they supply for streamlined procurement.

Steps

1. Open part detail page
2. Go to Vendors section
3. Add vendor with their part number and pricing
4. Mark preferred vendor

Keep vendor contact details current for your team.

Billing accounts

If a supplier gives you a different account number for each site or department, record them on the vendor page. You can then choose which account a purchase order should be billed to.

Monitor delivery times, accuracy, and responsiveness.

Indicators

• On-time delivery rate
• Order accuracy
• Response time
• Pricing competitiveness
• Part quality

Qualification & approval

Each vendor moves through an approval lifecycle, separate from its active/inactive status. Submitting for approval requires vendor edit rights; approving, rejecting, or suspending requires the vendor approval permission.

• Draft — newly added, not yet submitted
• Pending approval — awaiting a decision
• Qualified — approved for work
• Rejected — not approved
• Suspended — temporarily on hold

Performance scorecard

Record periodic evaluations rating each vendor on quality, cost, schedule compliance, and communication (1–5). The overall score is the average of the four axes, and the vendor's running average rating appears on its detail page.

The scorecard also shows metrics calculated automatically from the vendor's completed work orders — on-time completion rate, number of completed work orders, total cost and average completion time — so performance is tied to real work execution. Quality and communication stay manual ratings, as they require human judgement.

Track all costs per vendor across POs and work order additional costs.

Tracked

• PO line items by vendor
• WO additional costs linked to vendors
• Total spending over time

A contract records a service agreement with one of your vendors: its term, its value, the visits it entitles you to, and the equipment it covers. Contracts live under a vendor — open the vendor, then the Contracts tab.

Equipment covered by the contract

On the contract form, 'Covered assets' lets you list the equipment the agreement applies to. Each covered machine then shows the contract on its own page, under 'Contracts covering this asset' — so the question 'is this pump still under contract?' is answerable from the equipment, not only from the vendor. Coverage is edited on the contract; the asset page shows it read-only.

Contract files

A contract has a Documents tab: the signed agreement, annexes, a certificate of insurance. Give each file an expiry date and FreeMaint warns you before it lapses, rather than after — the same reminder mechanism the rest of the document library uses. A file can also be attached to several records at once, so one insurance certificate can cover a contract and a work permit without being uploaded twice.

What a contract records

• Reference, title and type (maintenance, service, warranty…)
• Start and end dates, with a renewal notice period
• Total value and currency
• Visit frequency and the next scheduled visit
• Auto-renewal, and how many days' notice to cancel