Enabling Cofactr Delegated Purchasing

When do I need Delegated Purchasing?

Cofactr maintains out-of-the-box connections with hundreds of suppliers, from which you can purchase with no configuration required.

Sometimes, in special circumstances, we need to make purchases on your behalf using your supplier relationship, which we refer to as Delegated Purchasing.

Typical reasons why Delegated Purchasing would be required include:

1. Supplier Restrictions: A few specific component brands (such as Analog Devices) have specific compliance requirements, and we need to use Delegated Purchasing to comply with those requirements.

2. Contract Pricing: If you receive blanket discounts on purchases from a supplier that you need to be able to access when purchasing via Cofactr, Delegated Purchasing can often enable this.

3. Special Order/Custom Parts: If a supplier manufactures a special part for you that is not available to the general market, we may need to use Delegated Purchasing to purchase these parts on your behalf. In some cases, this can be accomplished using a Letter of Authorization instead, which is typically easier, when possible.

Which suppliers support Delegated Purchasing?

Nearly all suppliers can be used with Delegated Purchasing in Cofactr as long as they support online ordering and accept credit card payments. Please get in touch with success@cofactr.com to confirm the availability of Delegated Purchasing for specific suppliers. In general, we recommend setting up delegated purchasing for DK and Mouser first, then after the first few orders setup other suppliers that you want to purchase from.

Setting up Delegated Purchasing

1. [HIGHLY RECOMMENDED] Many suppliers allow you to create sub-accounts that are linked to your primary account for pricing, etc, but keep the order data separated. Whenever possible, we strongly recommend creating a sub-account for Cofactr to use for Delegated Purchasing instead of using the same account that you log into and use yourself. This will be the same process you would use to create a sub-account for an employee to use.

   Please use your unique Cofactr AI email address as the sub account username/email. You can find your unique Cofactr AI email address within the Cofactr platform here: https://platform.cofactr.com/org?tab=info. You can generate any random password for the account.

2. Navigate to the supplier in the Suppliers App in Cofactr: https://platform.cofactr.com/suppliers or add the supplier if they aren't already configured in your account.

3. Navigate to the Settings tab

4. Click on the Ailana card

5. Click the pencil in Website Login Credentials

6. Enter the username and password from Step 1 and click Save

7. Message Cofactr Success via in-platform chat or success@cofactr.com, and we'll complete the process for you

Once Delegated Purchasing is enabled, you will be able to request quotes and place orders via the Cofactr platform like normal.