Rate a supplier and record a price change with Skipper
Two supplier records are kept through Skipper rather than a form on the supplier’s card: a score for the supplier, and a price they have announced for a future date. Ask in plain words; Skipper proposes the change and nothing is written until you approve it.
Score a supplier
Section titled “Score a supplier”Say, for example: “Rate North & Kiln Clay on this delivery: reliability 2, quality 4, because it came three weeks late.”
Each score is from 1 to 5 on four things: reliability (did it arrive when they said), quality (was it what they said), communication (could you get an answer) and price (did it hold, or move after the order). A score always comes with a sentence explaining it.
Rules worth knowing:
- Skip what you have no view on. Leave a dimension out rather than guessing a middle score. Averages are taken over the ratings that answered each dimension, so a guessed 3 would pull a supplier’s average for good, while an omitted score changes nothing.
- One delivery or the whole relationship. Name a purchase order to rate that delivery. A second rating of the same order replaces the first. Rate the relationship as a whole by not naming an order. Those stack up, so asking each quarter builds a trend.
- Stars and defects stay apart. Ask for the supplier’s summary and you get the averages, and beside them the defect rate measured at receipt. Nothing combines them into one score: a supplier with no defects who never answers the phone, and one with defects who replaces them in two days, are different facts.
You can also ask Skipper to list the ratings for a supplier or withdraw one.
Record an announced price
Section titled “Record an announced price”When a supplier says “from 1 October the price changes”, say so, naming the item and supplier. Skipper records the new price against that supplier’s price row, with the date it starts.
- The current price keeps applying until the start date, then the new one takes over. Nobody has to edit a row that morning.
- A date in the past is allowed, for an agreement entered late.
- One announcement per row per day: a second one for the same day replaces the first.
- It is a quote, not a cost. It moves no average cost and writes no stock. What an item cost is what a receipt says.
Ask Skipper to list the announced prices for an item, or to cancel one.