If you are dealing with multiple vendors regularly, managing their approval process can be challenging. 


Scattered communication across email threads and WhatsApp messages, involvement of multiple team members from different departments, and continuous back-and-forth make it hard to manage and keep track of things.


Setting up vendor lead onboarding workflows on Refrens helps you solve this. 


For your understanding, let’s say you are a large sports media company that outsources lots of content from different freelancers & agencies (i.e., “Vendors”). 


Now, when you want to onboard a new vendor, you might want to set up a process with different stages of onboarding. Where each stage might be managed by a different team member or department. Setting up a vendor onboarding workflow for your vendor leads can help you streamline this.


In this article, we will learn about -

1. Creating Approval Workflows
2. Capturing Vendor Leads (via Workflow Forms, Manual Addition, or Bulk Upload)
3. Adding Vendor Leads to Approval Workflows

4. Managing Vendor Onboarding & Approvals (and Verifying Vendor PAN/Bank Details)


Creating Approval Workflows


Firstly, go to Sidebar > Workflows > All Workflows > and click “Create New Workflow”:



You will see the following page:



You will see four fields here:


  1. Name of Workflow: Add a workflow name for your reference.

    In our case, let’s say we want to create different workflows for different types of vendors. So we will keep the workflow name according to the Vendor Type.

  2. Describe your Workflow: Add more details about the workflow for additional reference.

  3. Workflow Type: Select “Vendor Leads” as workflow type.

  4. Stages: Add/edit /delete Workflow stages as per your vendor onboarding process. For example, we have added four stages here. Each stage (New, In Progress, In Review, Approved) represents the onboarding stage of a vendor lead.


Once done, click on “Create Workflow” to proceed.


All your Workflows will be visible on your Workflow dashboard:



Next, you will have to Capture Vendor Leads on Refrens and add them to these Workflows.


Let’s see how you can do that:



Capturing Vendor Leads


There are three ways you can add Vendor Leads:

A) Workflow Forms

B) Manual Addition

C) Bulk Upload


Let’s see each in detail.


A) Workflow Forms:

Workflow Forms work similarly to lead capture forms. Each Workflow Form is assigned to a particular workflow.

When you want to onboard a vendor, you can just send them this form and ask them to fill out all the necessary details.

Once a vendor submits the form, a Vendor Lead automatically gets created and gets assigned the respective workflow. 


To create a Workflow Form, go to Workflows > Workflow Forms > click “Create Form”




You will see the following Form Creation page with three sections:


Let’s see how you can configure each section.


Step 1: Select Workflow



Select the workflow to which the vendor leads captured through this form will get assigned.

Also, select the default stage for the vendor leads captured.



Step 2: Customise Fields

Here you will see the list of all the form fields you can add in your form:


You can add/remove a field by turning the toggle on/off if you want.

You can also change the order of the field by using the drag & drop handle as shown in the image above.

Any change you make will be visible in the Form Preview section for your convenience.

Customise Fields: Click on the “settings” icon to access field customization settings such as changing the field name, adding additional info like help text or placeholder text, making the field mandatory, hiding a field from vendors, etc.




Step 3: Form Configuration


Here's what your form configuration section will look like:




Add Business Logo:




Add your logo for a professional look. (If you are creating the form to embed in your website, you can also choose to show/hide the logo with the checkbox.)


Form Title:




Add the form title that your form viewers will see.


Form Description:




Add more details about the form to give more context to form respondents.


Form Name:



Add a form name that will only be visible to you for internal use.


Submit Message:




Add a submission message that will show up when the respondents submit the form.


Turn the toggle on if you want to send a submission confirmation email to respondents.


Reply to email:




Choose an email to which you want the recipients to reply.


Customize Form Submit Button Color:


Now personalize the colors of your Form Submit Buttons to match them perfectly with your brand identity or website design.


Send Email to respondents on form submission:



Turn this toggle on to send an automated email to form respondents when they fill up your form. Click on the "Settings" icon (⚙️) to customize your email or choose from pre-saved email templates:


Lead Assignee:


If you want to automatically assign the vendor leads created via this form to a particular team member, you can do that from here.

Redirect on successful completion:




If you want to redirect the user to your website or any other landing page, you can mention the URL here. Add a URL label that will be visible to viewers - this will give them an indication of where they are being redirected to.


Take a look at the example below:


Theme:




If you are planning to embed the form on your website, you can choose if you want to use the default Refrens theme OR the theme of your website.


Enable Captcha Verification



Enable Captcha Verification to get protected from spam submissions and automated bots.


Show/Hide Refrens Branding:




If you are a premium user, you can also remove the "Powered by Refrens" branding by unchecking the highlighted box.



Step 4: Share/Publish Form


Once you are done, click on the "Publish Form" button in the top right corner to make the form live. Then click on the "Get Code" button to get a shareable link as shown below:


You can share this link with your vendors OR embed the form on your website. When a vendor fills up the form, it will automatically appear in your Vendor Leads dashboard. 


B) Manual Addition


To add Vendor Leads manually, go to Sidebar > Clients & Vendors > Vendor Leads > Create Vendor Lead:


You will be redirected to the Vendor Lead creation page:


As you see, you can add all the vendor details such as name, email, contact, address, PAN, GST, and Bank details.


Once added, click “Add Vendor Lead” to save the details. 


This vendor lead will be visible in your “Vendor Leads” dashboard.



C) Bulk Upload Vendor Leads


If you want to add multiple vendors at once, you can do so with our Bulk Upload feature.


Go to Vendor Leads > “Create Vendor Leads” Dropdown > Bulk Upload Leads to get started:


Put all your vendor details in an Excel file, upload that as a CSV from here, and you are good to go!


Adding Vendor Leads to Workflows


To add Vendor Leads to Workflows, go to your Vendor Leads Dashboard > Vendor Lead > More > click “Add to Workflow”:


You will see the following pop-up:


Here, you will see three fields -

  1. Select Workflow: Select the Workflow in which you want to manage the onboarding process of this Vendor

  2. Select Stage: Select the onboarding stage of the vendor 

  3. Select Assignee: Select the assignee who is responsible for that particular stage of the onboarding process.


Once done, click “Save Changes”. You will see that the Workflow Name, Assignee, and Stage have been updated on the Vendor Leads dashboard:





Managing Vendor Onboarding Workflows


Once your “Vendor Lead Workflows” are set up and “Vendor Leads” have been added to the respective workflows, you can view all the workflows and associated leads on your Vendor Workflows Dashboard:


When you click on “View Vendor Leads”, you can view leads of a particular workflow:




To manage the onboarding of a particular lead, just click on the lead to open a detailed lead view page:


Now, let’s explore all the options on the Vendor Lead View page:


 


  1. Assignee: Click on the settings icon to change the assignee for the next stage of approval.

  2. Current Stage: Update the lead approval stage after each review

  3. Discard: Discard leads that are no longer required. These leads will be marked as closed

  4. Complete: Complete the onboarding process.

  5. Add as Registered Vendor: Click on the three dots icon to “Add as Registered Vendor”. Once done, you can use Vendor Info to record purchases and Request for Invoices.

  6. Vendor Lead Details: You will see all the info of the Vendor Lead from here:


Verifying Vendor PAN & Bank Details

Refrens also helps you automatically verify PAN and Bank details of your vendors in a single click.

As you see above, PAN and Bank A/c. Details of this vendor are showing “Pending” verification. 


Just click on the pen icon to verify these details:


As you see, when you click on the pen icon, the system fetches the officially registered PAN and Bank details of the vendor:



You will be able to see the recorded and fetched details side-by-side for easier comparison. The system will also give a “Match Score” based on how much of the recorded info matches the official records. 


Once you have verified the details, you can mark it as “Verified” OR “Rejected” based on the match score:



Once a Vendor Lead onboarding is completed and is added as a registered vendor, it will be visible on your Vendor Dashboard:




That's it! If you still have questions, please drop an email at care@refrens.com OR reach out to us on live chat support for quick assistance.




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