Suppliers

A supplier is a business the garage buys its parts from. Garage+ knows two kinds:

• Bihr (API connection): Garage+ connects to your Bihr dealer account to keep the supplier catalog up to date every night (items, your purchase price, recommended retail price, availability) and, later, to send your orders to it. A garage declares only one active Bihr supplier.
• Not connected: a dealership, a scrapyard, a local wholesaler… Garage+ keeps its name and contact details; you send the orders yourself (phone, email).

The Parts and stock > Suppliers screen is reserved for people who have the permission Manage suppliers (credentials, catalogue, category mapping) (the Administrator; see Roles and permissions). The Reception role sees the list of suppliers in the orders, without their credentials. During support access, this permission is always removed: a support operator never enters the garage’s credentials.

Declare a supplier

1. Click Add a supplier.
2. Enter its name (80 characters at most; two active suppliers cannot have the same name).
3. Choose its type: Bihr (API connection) or Not connected. The type cannot be changed afterwards.
4. If you wish, enter your customer number with it, its email and its phone (with its country: see Entering a phone number). An old unrecognised phone is shown on the supplier page with the “To check” mention; left as is, the other fields can still be edited.
5. Click Save: the supplier’s page opens.

To correct the name or contact details, open the page and click Edit (a field left empty is erased).

Bihr account credentials

To connect, Garage+ needs the username and password of your Bihr dealer account. These are the API access credentials that Bihr provides to its dealers: ask your Bihr sales contact or Bihr customer service if you have not received them.

1. Open the Bihr supplier’s page.
2. In Bihr account credentials, enter the username and the password.
3. Click Save credentials.

The credentials are encrypted before being saved and tied to this garage and this supplier. They are never shown again: the page only says “Credentials saved on …”. They do not appear in the audit log either. To change them, click Replace; to remove them, Erase.

If the page says that saving credentials is not available, the server is not ready to encrypt them: contact support.

Test the connection

Click Test the connection: Garage+ asks Bihr for access with your credentials and shows the result (“Connection successful” or the reason for the failure, for example rejected credentials). The result of the last test and its date remain visible on the page and in the list of suppliers.

To spare the Bihr account, the test is limited to 10 attempts per hour for the same supplier.

Catalog synchronization

Every night, between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. (Paris time), at a time specific to each garage, Garage+ downloads the Bihr catalog: the items, your purchase prices, the recommended retail prices and availability. The scheduled time is shown on the page.

To avoid waiting for the night (for example right after entering the credentials), click Synchronise now. The synchronization runs in the background and can take several minutes; the button stays disabled until it is finished (only one at a time per supplier).

A synchronization reads three Bihr files, in this order:

1. the items (reference, description, brand, EAN, manufacturer reference, category): new ones are added, the others updated;
2. your prices: the purchase price of your account (discounts included) and the recommended retail price;
3. availability: the quantity in stock at Bihr and, for an out-of-stock item, its restocking date.

If a synchronization request was lost (server restarted, for example), Garage+ restarts it by itself within a quarter of an hour. A synchronization that stays “running” for more than 3 hours is closed as failed (interrupted); the next one starts from scratch.

Withdrawn items

An item that no longer appears in the Bihr items file is marked withdrawn: it is no longer offered. If it comes back in a later file, it becomes active again. Garage+ never withdraws items when the items file could not be read in full: a failed synchronization does not empty your catalog. Nor does it withdraw any when the file read is empty, or contains less than half of the active items of your catalog: such a file is considered suspicious, the synchronization fails (“Unreadable supplier catalog”) and your catalog stays as it is.

An item withdrawn for more than 90 days is erased, unless it is linked to a part of your catalog: the link then keeps the item’s Bihr reference.

Effect on your parts

For each part of your catalog linked to a Bihr item (still offered):

• the last purchase price of the link takes your Bihr price;
• if Bihr is the part’s preferred supplier, its purchase price follows your Bihr price and its sale price follows its price rule: recommended retail price, or purchase price × coefficient, with the chosen rounding. A part with a price entered by hand keeps its sale price: only its purchase price changes, and a sharp rise makes it appear in the prices to review;
• each price change is recorded in the part’s price history, with the synchronization that caused it.

Synchronization never touches the stock of your parts or their weighted average cost (calculated from your deliveries), nor the lines of work orders already entered. A part whose preferred supplier is not Bihr does not change price.

Synchronization report

The page shows the last 10 synchronizations: their date, their origin (scheduled or requested), their status (waiting, running, succeeded, partial, failed) and what changed: items added, updated and withdrawn, prices and availabilities read, parts of your catalog updated. A failed synchronization shows its reason. The screen updates by itself when a synchronization finishes.

• Succeeded: all three files were read.
• Partial: the items were read, but not the prices or availability; the previous values are kept. The reason is shown.
• Failed: the items file could not be read; nothing was withdrawn or changed in your parts.

Reports older than 90 days are erased. Each completed synchronization is recorded in the garage’s audit log (author: “System”), with its counters only.

Category mapping

When you create a part of your catalog from a Bihr item, Garage+ must know which VAT to apply, whether the part is tracked in stock, its unit and its price rule (recommended retail price, purchase price × coefficient, or price entered by hand) with its rounding. That is the role of the category mapping:

• the Default (all categories) row always exists; it is created with the supplier (garage default VAT, part tracked in stock, by the unit, recommended retail price, to the cent). You can edit it, not delete it;
• click Add a category to set a Bihr category differently (a group, a family or a segment, by its code): for example oils by the liter, or tires with a coefficient.

For an item, the most precise mapping wins: that of its segment, otherwise of its family, otherwise of its group, otherwise the default row. Changing a mapping does not change the parts already created. The optional Family field of a mapping puts the created part in a part family.

Catalog categories

After a first synchronization, the Catalog categories list (below the mapping) shows the groups, families and segments seen in the Bihr catalog, with their name and their number of items. Click Add a rule next to a category: the form opens with its code already filled in. If the category already has its row, the button becomes Edit the rule.

Archive or delete a supplier

Archiving a supplier (Archive button on its page, after confirmation):

• erases its credentials;
• removes it as preferred supplier of your parts (the links between parts and supplier remain, for the history);
• removes its catalog from searches (the items are erased within a quarter of an hour); a synchronization that was waiting is closed as failed;
• keeps its orders, which can still be viewed.

Archiving is refused while an order to this supplier is being sent, or accepted by Bihr and to check; the same goes for changing or erasing its credentials (see Supplier orders). An archived supplier no longer appears in the list; tick Show archived to see it again. Its name is freed: you can declare a supplier with the same name again (and a new Bihr supplier).

Deleting is only possible for a supplier that was never used: no linked part, no order and no synchronization. Otherwise, Garage+ refuses and suggests archiving it.

Export supplier data

On the Parts and stock > Suppliers screen, click Export supplier data (JSON): your browser saves a JSON file (format garageplus.suppliers-export, version 1) containing:

• your suppliers, archived ones included (name, type, customer number, email, phone, archiving date) and their category mapping;
• the links between your parts and your suppliers (supplier reference, preferred supplier, order multiple, last purchase price);
• your supplier orders, with their lines and their receipts;
• the price history of your parts.

The export never contains the Bihr account credentials (neither encrypted nor in clear), any connection token, or the technical details of what was sent to Bihr. Purchase prices are only included if you also have the permission to edit the catalog or to order from suppliers (otherwise they are empty); sale prices are always included.

The export is reserved for the Manage suppliers permission and holds 50,000 records at most. It is recorded in the audit log (number of records of each kind). It will be included in the garage’s full data export.

Audit log

Declaring a supplier, changes, saving or erasing the credentials (without their value), each connection test (with its result), each synchronization request and its result (counters only, author “System”), mapping changes, archiving, deletion and each data export are recorded in the garage’s audit log, with their author.