# Vendors Every external person or company you spend money on in PAI is a vendor — freelancers, contractors, rental houses, and service providers. Full-time employees on your organization's payroll are not vendors in PAI. The Vendors module is where you manage these relationships — a centralized database of records that connects to your budgets, call sheets, and, optionally, the vendor billing portal. You don't need to use PAI's vendor portal to get value from vendor records. Even without portal billing, having vendors in the system means your budget expense lines are attributed to real people and companies, your call sheets populate with their contact details automatically, and you have a searchable record of who you've worked with and what you've spent with them across projects. The portal adds a layer on top of that — but the CRM stands on its own. --- ## People and Businesses A vendor record is identified either by a person's **first and last name** or by a **business name**: - **A person**: crew members, sole proprietors, independent contractors. Portal billing requires a **first name, last name and email**, so anyone who'll bill through the portal needs a person record. - **A business**: companies, rental houses, retailers, location services and other providers you pay outside PAI. A business name is enough; email is optional. These records are for internal tracking: expense attribution, reporting, call sheet contacts. Businesses classified as **Merchant** don't bill through the portal. --- ## Adding Vendors Vendors can be added in two places: **From the Vendors module** — open **Vendors** → **List** and click **Add Vendor**. Enter an **Email**, then either **First Name** and **Last Name** or a **Business Name**, and optionally a **Phone**. Click **Create** to add the record, or **Create & Invite** to also send a portal invitation. **From a budget expense line** — click the **Assignee** field on any expense line and use **Search or Create...**: pick an existing vendor or staff member, or type a new name and choose **Create "{name}"**. Both paths create the same vendor record — the budget route is simply a faster path when you're already working in the budget and realize a vendor doesn't exist yet. --- ## Vendor Records A vendor record has these tabs: **Profile**, **Admin**, **Payroll**, **Projects**, **Links**, **Files** and **Messages**, with **Send Files** and **Message** in the header. **Profile** holds what PAI uses across the system: - **Contact Info**: name, business name, email, mobile number, address; used in call sheets and portal communications. The address powers distance search in Crew Finder - **Vendor Details**: primary and secondary crew type (used by Crew Finder), website, LinkedIn, CV link, project count - **Financial Details**: date of birth, tax jurisdiction, billing type, business name, workers' comp - **Equipment**, **Tags** and **Demographic Details** **Admin** is your internal side of the relationship: vendor status, **Do Not Contact**, and tax and payment setup (**Vendor Type**, **Tax Class Type**, **Year End Tax Form**, **Payment Type**, **Payment Terms**, **Vendor Agreement**, **Tax Forms Received Date**), plus custom fields and notes. You can edit a vendor's details even after they've onboarded through the portal. Your edits apply to your organization's view of the vendor; the vendor's own portal profile stays as they entered it. --- ## Connecting Vendors to the Portal Vendors go through a short lifecycle before they can access your organization's billing portal: **Invitation** — you send an invite from either the vendor record or a budget expense line. The vendor receives an email with a link to accept. They sign in with a link PAI emails them (no password needed); new vendors then complete registration, and vendors who already have a PAI account go straight to the connection. The link expires after **7 days** — if a vendor comes back to you saying it no longer works, send a fresh invitation rather than troubleshooting the old email. **Registration** — the vendor creates a PAI account, completes their profile, and is automatically connected to your organization. First-time PAI users completing registration via your invitation do not need to explicitly accept the connection — it is established as part of the registration process. Vendors who already have an existing PAI account from working with another organization will need to accept or decline your connection invite separately. A single vendor account can connect to multiple organizations. **Review Required** — once the vendor completes registration, their status moves to **Review Required** and they appear under **Needs Review** on the vendor list. This is your queue to review their information and activate them. **Activation** — before activating, you must assign a vendor classification: | Classification | What it means | |---|---| | **W2 Employee** | Employee — billed via timecard through the portal | | **1099 Contractor** | Independent contractor — billed via invoice through the portal | | **Foreign Contractor** | Non-US contractor — billed via invoice through the portal | | **Merchant** | Business / retailer — internal tracking only, no portal billing | Classification in PAI determines how the vendor interacts with the billing system. It is not a legal determination — consult your legal and financial advisors for proper worker classification. Once classified and activated, the vendor shows as **Active** and gains access to their billing dashboard within your organization's portal. The classification is stored as **Vendor Type** on the record's Admin tab. > [!note] > Vendor information is never shared between organizations. Each organization maintains its own private relationship with every vendor, even if that vendor is connected to multiple organizations. --- ## Crew Finder Open **Vendors** → **Map**. The Crew Finder is a map-based search tool for locating vendors in your database by geographic proximity and role. It's useful during pre-production when you're staffing a project in a location you don't usually work in, or when you want to surface crew members who haven't been top-of-mind. **How to search:** - Enter a **Location** to center the map on a production location - Set a **Search Radius** in miles: 5, 10, 25 (default), 50, 100 or 150, or enter your own - Pick one or more **Vendor Types** (roles); the map shows vendors who match any of them - Click **See {n} Results** for the list Results appear as markers on the map. The search checks both primary and secondary roles that vendors have listed in their profiles, so a vendor who listed camera operator as a secondary role will still surface in a camera operator search. Crew Finder only shows people already in your organization's database — it's a tool for working with your existing network, not a public crew directory. A search draws the radius on the map; **Reset Search** clears it. Address suggestions can take a moment to appear.