Vendors

Vendors are external consultants your firm works with — structural engineers, MEP consultants, landscape consultants, and others. Beech tracks every request made to a vendor, chase notes, and delivery status.

The vendor directory

Open Vendors from the More menu. The page opens on Requests — a firm-wide chase list of open consultant work (stale and overdue first). The Directory tab lists each vendor with their type, contact details, coordinator, and open-request count.

Add vendors from the Directory tab, or inline while creating a request from Add Work. Vendor types can be created at the same time; Firm settings → Vendor types is for reviewing the firm list. Admins and Managers can manage the directory; project managers can also add a vendor when creating a request.

Vendor requests

A vendor request represents a specific deliverable you are waiting on from a vendor — for example, "Structural column layout drawings for Block A." Create requests from the project Work tab (Add Work → Vendor), from Workspace Add Work, or from Vendors → Add coordination. When you link a related drawing, Beech can block that drawing until the vendor delivers.

Vendor request statuses

Due date vs follow-up

Expected delivery is when the consultant should deliver. Set it when you create the request — it drives overdue and due-soon alerts.

Follow-up is the next date to chase the vendor after you contact them. Typical flow: you call or email, they say “call back tomorrow,” you open the request, Log chase with what happened, and set follow-up to tomorrow. Follow-up is not auto-filled on create.

Log chase and activity

Open a vendor request and use Log chase to record what happened on a call or email, with an optional next follow-up date. Status changes and chase notes appear together in one Activity timeline.

Stale follow-up alerts

When a follow-up date passes and the request is still open:

• The request is flagged as Stale with an amber badge
• It surfaces on Home (Vendors due / Today's work) for the request owner (assignee)
• The owner receives a notification (falls back to the vendor directory coordinator if unassigned)

This ensures follow-ups never fall through the gap silently.

Linking vendor requests to drawings

A drawing can have a vendor request as a dependency. When the vendor request is not yet at Delivered status, the dependent drawing is automatically blocked. When the vendor delivers, the drawing is automatically unblocked. This is how Beech knows that a construction drawing can't proceed until the structural engineer delivers their output.

Finding vendor requests across projects

The Vendors page (More → Vendors) defaults to Requests across all your projects, sorted by urgency (overdue and stale first). Filter by Mine, project, or vendor type. Open vendor requests also appear on Workspace and on the project Work tab under Vendor Coordination.

Before you start

• Confirm you can open the relevant page and that your role has permission to perform the action.
• Identify the project, drawing, or task context before you start so updates are recorded in the right place.

Workflow checks and quality guardrails

• ✓

  Checklist item 1: Follow the Vendors process in order and save frequently after each meaningful update.

• ✓

  Checklist item 2: Write enough context in notes or comments so another teammate can understand the change without asking you.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Skipping ownership or due-date details, which makes reporting and follow-up unreliable.
• Updating status without adding context, which creates confusion during reviews and handovers.

Troubleshooting

1. 1
   Troubleshooting step 1

   If an action is unavailable, verify role permission and whether required upstream fields are completed.

2. 2
   Troubleshooting step 2

   If expected results are not visible, check page filters and refresh to confirm synced state.

What to do next

1. Open /docs/home and continue with the next workflow.
2. Open /docs/reports and continue with the next workflow.
3. Open /docs/troubleshooting and continue with the next workflow.