What is replicating a supplier between Cost Centres in tspoonlab, and how do you do it?
Replicating a supplier between Cost Centres in tspoonlab lets you manage one supplier's details and supplier items from a single Cost Centre and push them to the rest. This article covers how to turn replication on, replicate, update and stop replicating.
📌 Note: replicating suppliers is built for businesses that manage several Cost Centres in tspoonlab, such as restaurant groups, chains or companies with more than one site. You need access to the Suppliers module and to your tspoonlab settings, because you turn replication on there before you can use it.
In tspoonlab, replicating a supplier means there's a "parent" (master) Cost Centre where you make the changes. Those changes carry over one-way to the "child" (replicated) Cost Centres. Information flows only from "parent" to "child", never the other way round. When you replicate a supplier, its general details and the supplier items associated with it carry over too.
Because replication is one-way, changes you make to the supplier at a "child" Cost Centre don't affect the supplier at the "parent" Cost Centre. That's useful when each site needs its own delivery address or billing details for the same supplier.
How do you turn supplier replication on in tspoonlab?
Supplier replication is off by default in tspoonlab, and you turn it on from your settings. This is the first step, and both of the replication flows below need it.
Click "Options", in the top-right corner of the screen, and select "Settings" from the dropdown menu.
In "Settings", open the "Suppliers" section and tick the "Replication enabled" checkbox.
Click "Save".
📌 Note: the "Replication enabled" checkbox works at user level, not at account level. Every user who is going to replicate suppliers in tspoonlab has to turn it on in their own settings.
How do you replicate a supplier from the "parent" Cost Centre in tspoonlab?
Replicating a supplier from the "parent" Cost Centre is the most direct route when you want to take a single supplier to one or more "child" Cost Centres.
Switch to the "parent" Cost Centre with the "Cost Centres" selector in the top bar.
Go to "Management" and then "Suppliers". Select the supplier you want to replicate from the list.
On the supplier's page, click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner and select "Replicate".
In the pop-up window, under "Select the cost centres to replicate to", tick the checkbox for each "child" Cost Centre you want to replicate the supplier to. Use the "Search by name..." box if you have a lot of Cost Centres.
Click "Ok". The window closes and the supplier is replicated. At each "child" Cost Centre it now appears in the Suppliers list with a two-overlapping-squares icon next to its name, and its page shows the "Replicating:" line with the "parent" supplier and the "parent" Cost Centre it depends on.
How do you replicate several suppliers at once from the "child" Cost Centre?
Replicating from the "child" Cost Centre is the quicker route when one site needs a lot of suppliers from the same "parent" Cost Centre, because you replicate them all in a single operation.
Switch to the "child" Cost Centre with the "Cost Centres" selector in the top bar.
Go to "Management" and then "Suppliers".
Click the three-dot menu next to the "Search supplier..." box and select "Replicate suppliers".
In the pop-up window, under "Select the cost centre you want to replicate from", open the "Cost centre" field and select the "parent" Cost Centre.
Under "Select the suppliers to replicate", tick the checkbox for each supplier at the "parent" Cost Centre you want to replicate. You can filter the list with the "Search by name..." box.
Click "Ok". The window closes and the suppliers you selected appear in the Suppliers list at the "child" Cost Centre, each with the two-overlapping-squares icon that identifies replicated suppliers in tspoonlab.
How do you tell the "parent" supplier from the "child" supplier in the Suppliers list?
In tspoonlab you can tell the "parent" supplier from the "child" supplier straight from the Suppliers list, without opening the supplier's page, because each one carries a different icon next to its name.
"Parent" supplier: the original supplier, the one that gets replicated. It always appears with the ® symbol next to its name in the Suppliers list of its own Cost Centre.
"Child" supplier: the replica tspoonlab creates at the other Cost Centre. It appears with a two-overlapping-squares icon next to its name in the Suppliers list of the "child" Cost Centre.
In this screenshot of the Suppliers list at the "parent" Cost Centre, the supplier Fructus appears with the ® symbol next to its name. That symbol means Fructus is the "parent" supplier of a replication in tspoonlab.
In this screenshot of the Suppliers list at the "child" Cost Centre, the same supplier Fructus appears with the two-overlapping-squares icon next to its name. That icon means this Fructus is the "child" supplier and depends on the "parent" supplier.
How do you update a replicated supplier's general data from the "parent" supplier?
When you change a supplier's data at the "parent" Cost Centre, you can pull those changes into the replicated supplier from its own page at the "child" Cost Centre.
Switch to the "child" Cost Centre and open the replicated supplier's page. In the header you'll see the "Replicating:" line with the "parent" supplier and the "parent" Cost Centre.
Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner and select "Update general data from the parent supplier".
In the pop-up window, open the dropdown and choose one of these three options:
"Update all general data": pulls every piece of general data from the "parent" supplier into the replicated supplier.
"Update all general data except the supplier contact data": pulls the "parent" supplier's general data across, but keeps the contact data the supplier has at the "child" Cost Centre.
"Update only parsing instructions": pulls across only the "parent" supplier's parsing instructions. This option does something only if your plan includes the AI document scanning quota, which is the feature that uses those instructions to read delivery notes.
Click "Yes" to apply the update, or "No" to cancel. Once you confirm, the window closes and the replicated supplier shows the data brought over from the "parent" supplier.
📢 Important: when you update the general data from the "parent" supplier, the supplier's data at the "child" Cost Centre is replaced by the "parent" supplier's. If that Cost Centre has data of its own you don't want to lose, such as the supplier's contacts, choose "Update all general data except the supplier contact data" instead of "Update all general data".
How do you stop replicating a supplier in tspoonlab?
To stop replicating a supplier in tspoonlab you break the link between the "parent" Cost Centre and the "child" Cost Centre. You do it from either replication flow, in reverse.
Open the same pop-up window you used to replicate: "Replicate" from the supplier's page at the "parent" Cost Centre, or "Replicate suppliers" from the Suppliers list at the "child" Cost Centre.
Untick the "child" Cost Centre's checkbox if you're working from the "parent" Cost Centre, or the supplier's checkbox if you're working from the "child" Cost Centre.
Click "Ok". The supplier stops depending on the "parent" supplier and stays at the "child" Cost Centre as an exact, independent copy. It keeps the data and supplier items it had at that moment, but from then on changes at the "parent" supplier no longer reach it, and the two-overlapping-squares icon stops appearing next to its name.
📌 Note: breaking the replication link doesn't delete the supplier at the "child" Cost Centre, or its purchasing information. Delivery notes and invoices always belong to the Cost Centre they were recorded at. If you later want that supplier back in sync with the "parent" supplier, you'll have to replicate it again.
What is a master account, and what is it for when you replicate suppliers?
A master account in tspoonlab is a free Cost Centre with no purchases, used to manage the suppliers of several Cost Centres from one place.
The usual practice is to create your master suppliers in the master account and replicate them from there to the other Cost Centres. That way you always work in the same place: add a new supplier item to the supplier in the master account, and you can push it to the "child" Cost Centres without repeating the job at each one.
Replicating suppliers from a master account works exactly like replicating them from any other "parent" Cost Centre. Both replication flows and the "Update general data from the parent supplier" option are the same.
How is replicating a supplier different from sharing or copying it in tspoonlab?
Replicating a supplier in tspoonlab differs from sharing it and from copying it in two things: whether there's a hierarchy between Cost Centres, and whether later changes keep travelling from one Cost Centre to another.
Replicating vs sharing: when you replicate a supplier, there's a "parent" Cost Centre where you make the changes, and they travel one way to the "child" Cost Centres. That's why each "child" Cost Centre can keep its own prices and terms. When you share a supplier there's no hierarchy: there's a single supplier, and its contact details and purchasing terms apply at every Cost Centre it's shared with, all at once.
Replicating vs copying: when you replicate a supplier, the "child" supplier keeps its link to the "parent" supplier and can pull its general data across whenever you need. When you copy a supplier no link remains: the copy and the original supplier work independently from the start.
You'll find the full comparison of the three options, along with the step-by-step guide to sharing a supplier, in Share a supplier between Cost Centres 🔀.
💡 Tip: if you need each Cost Centre to have its own prices, terms or delivery details for the same supplier, but you want to keep adding items from a single place, replicating is the option to use. If what you need is the supplier's contact details and purchasing terms kept in sync at every Cost Centre, share the supplier instead of replicating it.
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