Add Your Suppliers and Transport

Every job needs a carrier and a disposal site, unless it is marked as needing no transport. Both come from your suppliers, and Paperwork checks their registrations before it lets a job go ahead. This page adds them, and shows how to add your own company if you carry or tip your own waste.

Before you start

• You can add suppliers. Your Paperwork role needs to allow creating them. The Paperwork Owner role has every permission. See Set up your organisation and team.
• You know who you use. List the carriers who move your waste and the sites that take it, including any of your own. Have their registration numbers or permit numbers to hand, or at least their names.
• Your own licence details, if you carry or tip yourself. Your carrier registration, and the permit for any site you operate.

Suppliers are under Relationships in the Paperwork sidebar. Nothing on this page needs References or Settings, so you do not have to be an organisation Owner.

How a job gets a carrier and a disposal site

A supplier holds sites, and each site holds registrations. The site, not the supplier, is what you choose as a carrier or disposal site. A job picks from the carriers and disposal sites on its sale, which you add on the sale's Carriers and Disposal sites tabs with Add carrier and Add disposal site. On each one you choose a Source:

Source	Use it when	What Paperwork can say about it
Your suppliers	The carrier or site is a supplier you have set up here	Checked against its registration, if you choose one. With a site but no registration it shows No registration.
EA Public Register	You search the Environment Agency register from the sale	Captured from the register and checked normally
Manual	The registration is outside the register: SEPA, NRW, Northern Ireland or overseas	Always Unverified

Setting up your suppliers properly now is what makes the first source work. It also means each sale picks from a list instead of retyping details. You will add carriers and disposal sites to a sale on step 11. See Sales for the sale side.

Add a supplier

Open the supplier form

Click Suppliers under Relationships, then New supplier.

Fill in the name

Name is the only required field. If you have a Companies House number, enter it under Auto-populate from Companies House and click Look up to fill in the name, address and SIC codes. Our account number with them is the number the supplier has given you as their customer.

Create the supplier

Click Create supplier. You land on the supplier's record, where you add sites. Switch on Start this supplier on stop first only if you do not want to use them yet.

Add a site to the supplier

Open the Sites tab

Open the supplier, click the Sites tab, then New site.

Fill in the site

Site name is required. Copy address from supplier and Copy contact details from supplier save retyping. Click Create site.

Add one site for each place you use: a carrier often has one, and a disposal operator may have several.

Add a registration to the site

Registrations come from the Environment Agency's public register, so Paperwork reads the number, holder, dates and status for you rather than relying on what you type.

Open the Registrations tab

Open the site, click Registrations, then Add from EA.

Search the public register

In Add registration from the public register, search by name or registration number. Type at least 2 characters. You will see "No matching registrations." if nothing fits.

Review and import

Click a result to preview it, then click Import registration. You will see Registration imported.

Once imported, click the registration to open it. Refresh pulls the latest status and dates from the register. Upload PDF keeps your own copy of the certificate against it, which is optional.

Each registration shows a status. A site whose registration is Expired, or Terminated (or the register's own word, such as Revoked or Surrendered), cannot be chosen as a carrier or disposal site. Expiring Soon (within 30 days) and Closure & Aftercare still work, but warn on the job check. To fix a dead one, renew it on the register and click Refresh, or add the new registration.

If you carry or tip yourself

Paperwork has no built-in idea that you are a carrier. To be the carrier or disposal site on your own jobs, your company has to be a supplier like any other, with a site and an imported registration.

Add your company as a supplier

Follow the steps above: add a supplier with your company name, then a site, then import your carrier registration (or your site permit) with Add from EA.

Switch on This is me

On the supplier, switch on This is me and click Mark as me to confirm. Paperwork also offers this with "This looks like you." when the name matches your organisation. Only one supplier can carry the mark, and marking another replaces it. The record then shows "This is your organisation".

Optional: waste fates, rate cards and DWT codes

None of these block a job. Add them when you need them.

• Waste fates on a disposal site say what happens to the waste once it arrives, as percentages per EWC code. They feed your customers' recovery and disposal figures in the customer portal. See Suppliers.
• Rate cards record the prices a supplier has agreed with you, so a cost can come from an agreed rate. See Rate cards.
• DWT codes link a supplier to its Digital Waste Tracking API code. They come after the first job, on step 12. See DWT settings.
• Approve at the top of a supplier or site marks it as vetted, so you can filter and report on it. Paperwork does not stop anyone using an unapproved supplier.

If you skip this

• No carrier or no disposal site on the sale — the job check blocks the job with "This sale has no carriers" or "This sale has no disposal sites". The usual way round it is This job doesn't require transport, for a job that genuinely needs none. Someone with the Paperwork Owner role can also use Bypass these failures (see Jobs).
• Only dead options — if every carrier or disposal site has a dead registration or an archived supplier, the check blocks with "No usable carrier on this sale" (or disposal site).
• A supplier site with no registration, or a Manual entry — a warning on the job check: "name has no linked registration". The job still goes ahead, but Paperwork cannot vouch for the carrier or site.
• Your own company not set up as a supplier — it is not on the list when you add a carrier or disposal site from Your suppliers, whatever This is me says. You are left with the EA Public Register or Manual sources.
• A registration that lapses — a warning when it is within 30 days of expiry, and once it has expired that carrier or site can no longer be chosen. The job is blocked only if no usable option is left.

Check it worked

• Open a supplier site and click Registrations. Your registration shows Active.
• Open the supplier. Its header shows no warning that registrations need attention.
• If you carry or tip yourself, your own supplier record shows "This is your organisation", and its site has an Active registration.
• On step 11, the Carriers and Disposal sites tabs of your first sale show the registration's status, for example Active, rather than Unverified or No registration.

What to do next

Step 9, Add your customers and sites, adds the people you do the work for, along with the tax rate and payment term that decide VAT and due dates on their invoices.

• Suppliers — registration statuses, waste fates, stop and archive
• Sales — adding carriers and disposal sites to a sale
• Jobs — what the job check blocks and what it only warns about
• Contacts — the people at your suppliers