Supplier Portal - Restricted Supplier Access
Give a supplier limited access to MerchantFlow so they can see units sold, unit costs, and what is billable to them, without exposing your revenue, margins, or customer data.
Supplier Portal
The supplier portal is a restricted view for the people who make or ship your products. A supplier signed in with this access sees what they need to reconcile an invoice -- which products moved, how many units, and what that comes to at their agreed unit rate -- and nothing else.
It exists so you can stop emailing spreadsheets to your supplier every month without handing them a login that shows your revenue.
What a supplier can see
The page is titled Supplier Portal. For each product, over the selected date range:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Product | Product name and image |
| SKU | The product SKU |
| Unit cost | Your agreed cost for that product. Shown as a range when the cost varies across variants, and as No cost when nothing is on file |
| Units sold | Units on orders placed in the period, excluding refunded orders |
| Pending | Units on orders that are still unfulfilled or only partly fulfilled |
| Billable | Unit cost × units sold |
Where a product's cost varies by variant, the Billable figure uses the lowest known cost, because a supplier quotes a unit rate -- so the range in the Unit cost column is what tells you the number is approximate.
Three summary cards above the table show Orders, Units sold, and Pending fulfilment for the period.
Products marked with any other status are hidden -- a product appears when its status is active or has never been set. The list is paginated at 50 products per page and follows the date range selector, so a supplier can pull "last month" themselves rather than asking you for it.
What a supplier cannot see
The supplier view is deliberately narrow. It excludes:
- Revenue, selling prices, and discounts
- Profit, margins, and any P&L figure
- Ad spend, attribution, and traffic
- Customers and orders as records
- Every other dashboard page
The product feed is the single data source for the role. The sidebar shows one item, Supplier, and any other dashboard URL redirects straight back to the supplier view -- so a supplier cannot reach a page they should not see even by typing it. Because supplier:view is the role's only permission, every other gated endpoint returns 403 as well.
Note that unit cost is visible -- it is what makes the billable figure checkable. This is the supplier's own quoted rate, so it is not new information to them, but be aware it is on screen if several suppliers share a product.
Setting it up
Supplier access is granted through the supplier role, which carries a single permission (supplier:view) and nothing else.
The role is not currently offered in the invite dropdown on Dashboard → Settings → Team, which lists Admin, Analyst, and Viewer only. Contact support to have a supplier invited to your workspace.
Once the invitation is accepted, the supplier signs in normally and lands on the supplier view. See roles and permissions for how the role sits alongside the others.
Making the numbers reconcile
The billable figure is only as good as the costs behind it:
- Keep unit costs current. The billable total is unit cost × units sold, so a stale cost produces a wrong invoice check. Use effective dates when a supplier price changes so historical periods keep the price that actually applied.
- Expect a cost range on some products. If a product's cost changed during the period, or varies by variant, the view shows a range rather than a single figure.
- Products with no cost on file show no cost and no billable amount. COGS coverage is what closes those gaps.
Unit counts are computed the same way as your own product numbers, so a supplier's units and your products table agree for the same range.
Common questions
Does a supplier count against my seat limit? Supplier accounts are team members, so plan seat limits apply. See pricing plans for seat counts by tier.
Can I limit a supplier to only their own products? The view returns your product catalogue for the period. If you work with several suppliers who should not see each other's products, consider that before granting access.
Can a supplier change anything? No. The role is read-only.
What does the Pending column actually count? Units on orders placed in the period whose fulfilment status is still unfulfilled or partial -- ordered but not yet out of the warehouse. Subtract it from units sold for what has shipped.
Which timezone and currency does the supplier see? Your store's timezone and currency, so their figures match yours.
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