Hello David,
Actually, such could make it's way to the help documents being provided online.
I am fully with you, that a lot of fuzzy writing is on this (and other) trails.
It should be clear to everyone that the common grounds are in the Data Model
book.
The second issue is for sure with tranlations, as in DE the same is the case as
with NL: Vendor and Supplier are translated to the same term, which obviously
makes it very difficult to keep the two concepts separate.
I shall take a look at the german translations an d make sure they will be
separated. I recommend the same for any other language translation where the
two, vendor and supplier, fall into the same translated term. (Heidi, is that
you for NL? Or are you still confused? Let me know and I can assist with the
Label files)
As for the first issue I shall review the online help documents and update if
necessary.
Kind regards
Carsten
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-----Original Message-----
From: David E Jones<[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:31:29
To:<[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: vendors and suppliers
Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi David:
Nice to hear from you again. Thanks for your input. I have some
responses. Please see below:
On 12/9/11 4:44 PM, David E Jones wrote:
Ruth Hoffman wrote:
2) If you look at how vendor/supplier is used in some of the OFBiz
applications, you might observe that:
A vendor "supplies" goods or services to the Company of record for the
OFBiz instance. Those goods or services may be raw materials for
manufacturing, products for resale on the ecommerce site or computers to
run your business. When a vendor (with a record in the VENDOR table)
supplies you with something, they are acting in a role called a
"SUPPLIER".
So, in the OFBiz world, my interpretation is: A vendor is a supplier. It
is as simple as that. Anything more is making it too complicated :-)
Anyone care to comment on my interpretation?
Actually a Supplier is a Party the sells things to the company running
OFBiz, hence the SupplierProduct entity. In other words, a purchase
order is sent to a Supplier.
A vendor is also a Party that could sell things to the company running
OFBiz. Just depends on how you set up your accounting system and how you
name your accounts.
The term vendor doesn't mean much in OFBiz, but has been used for any
Party that sells something. For example, if you have multiple stores in
your OFBiz instance you may have a vendor per store. You could also have
multiple vendors selling through a single store.
Seems to me if the Party sells something and the term vendor is used to
express that activity, then the term DOES have lots of meaning. OFBiz
e-commerce, after all, is all about selling products.
That said, there is also an entity named VendorProduct that when coupled
with the Vendor entity may be used in the same way as the
SupplierProduct entity. Perhaps I should have said a vendor is a type of
supplier? Unfortunately (or maybe fortuneately - who is to say?), the
data model does not enforce this relationship.
Okay, so did you ask to get an answer, or did you ask to start a
discussion? It's not like this is open to interpretation, this was
discussed and decided on a long time ago.
A supplier sells stuff to the company running OFBiz. A vendor sells
stuff to the customers of the company, and a vendor could be an
affiliate or consignment seller sort of thing.
The SupplierProduct and VendorProduct entities are VERY different and
meant to model these 2 totally different things. I'm sorry, but looking
at them again to make sure, I'm not even sure how they could possibly be
confused.
They are not really equivalent terms.
Maybe, maybe not, but I would argue, based on the data model, that they
ARE equivalent terms when a vendor acts in the role of supplier.
Regardless, there is really no need to make this more confusing or
complex than it already is.
There is a clear distinction here. It's not making things complex, it's
two different concepts. It's not one concept, that would be
over-simplifying it. It is two separate, distinct concepts that need
different words, and have them.
Damn, with all the mis-information buzzing around these lists no wonder
people have so many issues with OFBiz. Of course, OFBiz itself is
admittedly complex and often unclear or just plain buggy and
inconsistent, so this is understandable.
I don't know exactly what we can do about all of this, but being more
careful and detailed might be a good start for all of us.
-David
