Vendor Suggest agent
Suggests vendors using what each can supply, their scorecard and your past dealings, and gives the reason for each. It only suggests and never invites anyone.
Validated with each clientWhat does Vendor Suggest replace? The work of a procurement officer: pick the best vendor for a requisition. Suggests vendors using what each can supply, their scorecard and your past dealings, and gives the reason for each. It only suggests and never invites anyone.
Shows why
It shows the reasons behind every item it lists, in words.
Waits for you
Nothing is filed, paid or posted until a person says so.
Gets reviewed
Every approval and correction is recorded, so you can see how well it does on your own books.
A sourcing round with this agent
Take a company that buys packaging, chemicals and spares from a few hundred suppliers, with one procurement officer.
- The need becomes a sourcing event. The procurement officer opens a sourcing event with its lines, each tied to an item group or category.
- She clicks Suggest suppliers. Kinnow takes the item groups on the lines. A free-text specification is deliberately not used, because matching a sentence to a list of tags would be a guess.
- It asks the supplier master who can supply them. Suppliers are tagged with what they can supply. Kinnow ranks those that match, up to 25.
- It scores each one on three things. Whether they can supply the item counts for 55%, their delivery and quality record from the supplier scorecard for 30%, and whether you have bought from them before for 15%. A supplier with no history gets a middle score, not zero, so new suppliers are not shut out.
- Each suggestion comes with its reasons. The reasons are in words, for example: tagged for packaging film, 92% on time, 97% accepted, bought from before.
- The officer picks. She chooses whom to invite, or ignores the list. The invitation is a separate step that only she takes.
See a shortlist on your own suppliers. Send us your supplier list with what each one supplies.
What it reads and what it hands back
| What it reads | What it hands back | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| Item groups or categories on the sourcing event's lines | The needs to match suppliers against | Sourcing event |
| Supplier master: what each supplier is tagged to supply | Suppliers that can supply those items | Suggest suppliers on the event |
| Supplier scorecard: on-time %, quality acceptance % | A performance score, shown as a reason | The reasons beside each suggestion |
| Goods receipts: whether you have bought from them | A history score and a reason | The reasons beside each suggestion |
What a person decides
- Whom to invite. The list is advice. Kinnow never invites a supplier by itself.
- How suppliers are tagged. The list is only as good as the tags in your supplier master. Your team keeps them current.
- Whether to look beyond the list. A trusted supplier who is not tagged yet will not appear. The officer can still invite anyone.
- What it never does. It never contacts a supplier and never awards an order. Nothing is filed, paid or posted without a person.
Ask Kinnow about this
Ask in plain English. Before it answers, Kinnow shows where the answer will come from and what it will cost, and it uses only what the person asking is allowed to see.
| You could ask | What the answer shows |
|---|---|
| Which suppliers can supply corrugated boxes? | Suppliers tagged for that item group, with their scorecard figures |
| Which of our packaging suppliers delivered late most often this year? | On-time percentage by supplier from the scorecard |
| Have we ever bought from this supplier before? | Whether goods receipts exist for them, and the latest |
| Which suppliers are not tagged for anything yet? | Suppliers in the master with no capability tags |
Bring a requisition you have open today. We will build the shortlist with you and show every reason.
Works with
Part of Buy. Nearby:
- Supplier tenders with every choice explained is the process this suggestion starts.
- Reorder Planner raises the need that often starts a sourcing round.
- 3-way match checks what the chosen supplier later bills.
3-way match
Matches the purchase order (PO), the goods receipt and the supplier's bill line by line, and holds the bill until any difference is sorted out.
BuyReorder Planner
Recommends how much to reorder and when. It skips an item that already has a draft reorder open, and it never raises a PO by itself.
Questions
What does the Vendor Suggest agent do?
Suggests vendors using what each can supply, their scorecard and your past dealings, and gives the reason for each. It only suggests and never invites anyone.
Does Vendor Suggest act on its own?
No. It suggests vendors and gives the reason for each, but never invites one. A person chooses and approves.
Does Vendor Suggest learn?
Kinnow keeps every approval and rejection, along with how sure the agent said it was, so you can see how it does on your own books. We do not describe it as changing its own behaviour; corrections are kept so they can be reviewed with you.
How is it paid for?
It does not use an AI model. It is part of your agent pack, and there is no charge per user.
How does Vendor Suggest rank suppliers?
On three things: whether the supplier is tagged to supply the item (55% of the score), their delivery and quality record from the scorecard (30%), and whether you have bought from them before (15%). Each suggestion lists its reasons in words.
What if it shows no suggestions?
It tells you why. Either no supplier has been tagged yet, the event has no item codes to match on, suppliers exist but none is tagged for these items, or the supplier master could not be reached. Each needs a different next step.
Tell Kinnow what slows you down.
Answer three questions. Get the applications, the agents and a two-week plan for your business.