The Supplier Portal

Your subcontract suppliers don't need (and shouldn't have) full access to your Desk. They need a focused view of their work: the Batches you've assigned to them, the materials at their warehouse, the dispatches expected back, the cutting orders they're running (if applicable).

The Supplier Portal at /garments/supplier is that view. It's a separate App, with its own login and its own scope.

How a supplier gets access

Two steps:

Website User account for the supplier's contact person, created from the User Management page. Use Website User (not System User) — Website Users are free and unlimited, and they can't accidentally wander into your Desk.
Link the Website User to the Supplier record (and through the Supplier, to the External Production Unit they operate). Once linked, the portal scopes everything to that supplier's data.

Suppliers visit https://your-site.com/garments/supplier on their phone or laptop and log in.

What suppliers see

Five views on the portal:

Batches — Production Batches assigned to this supplier's External Units. Tap a Batch to see its details, materials, expected delivery dates.
OLE (Operation Ledger) — Receive and Dispatch entries for this supplier. They can create new OLE entries (Handoffs) when they receive material or when they dispatch finished goods back.
Stock — stock in this supplier's warehouse (which is your warehouse, physically at their site). Helps them know what raw materials they have to work with.
Cutting — Cutting Orders, if the supplier runs cutting (some do; some don't). They can advance the Cutting Order workflow (Pending → Marked → Spread → Cut → Handed Over) from their side.
Settings — user, language.

Everything is scoped to the supplier. They never see other suppliers' batches, your other production work, your financial data, or your other operations.

What this enables

The portal replaces a lot of email and spreadsheets:

Status visibility. Suppliers can see what's incoming and what's expected back without calling you.
Real-time updates. When a supplier posts a Receive OLE, your Recovery Queue updates immediately. No reconciliation lag.
Audit trail. Every action the supplier takes is attributed to their Website User. If a Batch goes missing, you can trace exactly who saw it and when.
Cutting handoff. For suppliers running cutting, they advance the workflow themselves; your production team sees it as it happens.

It also raises the bar for the supplier. They have to keep up — but they're given the tools to do it.

Configuring what suppliers can see

The fields and actions visible to suppliers can be tuned through Portal Settings (covered on Your Company Website). Most factories leave the defaults — they're sensible — and only customize for specific brand or compliance requirements.

A few common adjustments:

Hide pricing on Batches a supplier sees. They need to know the work; they don't need to know what you're charging the brand.
Hide certain Item Groups from the Stock view if there's data the supplier shouldn't see.
Disable the Cutting tab for suppliers who don't run cutting.

Image: The Supplier Portal on a phone showing the Batches view with three assigned Batches and one open with materials visible.

A working example

You onboard a new wash subcontractor, AquaWash. You:

Create a Supplier "AquaWash Pvt Ltd" with their contact details.
Create an External Production Unit "Wash — AquaWash" linked to that Supplier with its own warehouse.
Create a Website User for AquaWash's operations manager.
Link the Website User to the Supplier.
Email the manager the URL and login.

Day-one for AquaWash:

They log in. They see one Batch in their queue (you sent them a test Batch).
They tap into it; they see materials, expected delivery window, the operations they're responsible for.
A delivery of WIP arrives at their facility. They post a Receive OLE.
Your Recovery Queue updates; you can see they have it.
Three days later, they finish, dispatch the trucks back, and post a Dispatch OLE.
Your dispatcher picks up the Recovery on your end.

No emails. No calls. No spreadsheets. Just clean, mutual visibility.

What to do next

That closes the external-units folder. For the stock-visibility tools that read all this movement data, see Stock visibility.