Add a supplier
A farm and the farmer who runs it are registered together, in one short form.
- Open Suppliers from the left-hand menu, under Supply Base.
- At the top of the page, click Create New Supplier.
- Fill in the farmer’s and the farm’s details.
- Save.
The new supplier appears in the list. Open it to add plots and map their boundaries - which is the step that actually makes the record useful.
What to get right the first time
Section titled “What to get right the first time”The short code. This is how the farm stays identifiable forever. If your
organisation has a coding scheme, follow it exactly. Codes that drift - REN-42
here, REN-042 there - create duplicate farms that take real work to merge
later.
The farmer’s name, spelled the way it will be spelled again. Names are the single biggest source of duplicates. Where a national ID or similar identification number exists, record it - it’s the only field that reliably distinguishes two people with the same name in the same village.
Location. Get the administrative hierarchy right (region, district, sub-county or their local equivalents). Analytics, collection-point assignment and regional reporting all key off it.
Doing it in the field instead
Section titled “Doing it in the field instead”Most suppliers are registered in the Field App, at the farm, by a field officer - which is better, because the farmer is standing there to confirm the details and the plot can be walked in the same visit. The dashboard form exists for office corrections and for farms added after the fact.
Doing it in bulk
Section titled “Doing it in bulk”Registering an existing farmer list one at a time is a mistake. See Import data in bulk.