Page Contents

Table of Contents

How do I open the supplier search?
What does each search field do?
How do I search by company name?
How do I search by first name, surname, email or telephone?
How do I search by supplier reference?
How do I search by postcode?
How do I combine fields?
How do I show totals for each supplier?
How do I list suppliers by letter?
Troubleshooting
Related topics

Hide

Search tips - Suppliers

You can search your supplier records from the supplier list, using one search field or a combination of them. Open the Search panel to find suppliers by company name, contact name, postcode, email, telephone or supplier reference.

Below is a table outlining each field and its capabilities, followed by more detail on how each one matches what you type.

How do I open the supplier search?

Click Purchases in the top menu, then View suppliers.
Click Search to open the search panel.
Fill in one or more fields.
Click Submit Search.

The results appear under the panel, with a line showing how many suppliers were found. If nothing matches, the page shows NO SUPPLIERS FOUND. If you click Submit Search with nothing filled in, QuickFile asks you to Please enter a valid search!. Click Cancel Search to close the panel and show all your suppliers again.

Capital or lower-case letters make no difference in any of the text boxes.

What does each search field do?

Please note: some fields support “Enhanced Search” methods where you can apply partial matching and phrase matching.

Field	Description	Search Type
Company name	The business name for your supplier	Partial string match. Finds the text anywhere in the business name. Contact names are not searched.
First name	The first name of a supplier contact	Exact string match. Type the whole first name.
Surname	The surname of a supplier contact	Exact string match. Type the whole surname.
Postcode	The supplier address postcode	Exact string match. Case and spaces are ignored. Put `*` at the end to match the start of a postcode.
Email	The email address of a supplier contact	Exact string match. Type the whole email address.
Telephone	The telephone number of a supplier contact	Exact string match. Type the number exactly as it is saved, including spaces.
Supplier reference	An auto-assigned overridable supplier reference	Partial string match. Finds the text anywhere in the reference.

How do I search by company name?

Type the supplier’s business name, or part of it, in Company Name. The text can be anywhere in the name.

Acme returns every supplier with Acme in its name. acm and cme work too, because the search finds part of a word as well as whole words.
If you type more than one word, the name must contain them together, in the order you typed them. Acme Test returns the Acme Test suppliers, but Test Acme returns nothing.
If a name contains an accented letter, type it with the accent. Café finds a supplier called Café Test Search Ltd, but Cafe does not.

Company Name searches business names only. An asterisk, quote marks and the words AND, OR and NOT are treated as ordinary characters and words here, so Acme AND Plumbing returns nothing. The names of supplier contacts and supplier references are not searched.

How do I search by first name, surname, email or telephone?

These four boxes need the whole value. Part of a name, email address or number does not match, and an asterisk does not work in any of them.

First Name and Surname: type the whole name, for example Pat or Tester. Pa and Test return nothing.
Email: type the whole address, for example pat.tester@example.com. example.com and @example.com return nothing.
Telephone: type the number exactly as it is saved, including any spaces. If a number is saved as 01632 960123, 01632 960123 finds it, but 01632960123 and 960123 do not.

In the example above, First Name Pat and Surname Tester find the supplier with that contact.

How do I search by supplier reference?

Type the supplier reference, or part of it, in Supplier Reference. The text can be anywhere in the reference.

SUP0000027 returns the supplier with that reference.
0000027 returns the same supplier, because it matches part of the reference.
SUP0000 returns every supplier whose reference contains it.
An asterisk does not work here, so SUP* returns nothing.

How do I search by postcode?

Type the whole postcode in Postcode. Capital or lower-case letters and spaces make no difference, so AB1 2CD, ab12cd and AB12CD all find the same supplier.

Part of a postcode on its own, such as AB1, returns nothing. To match the start of a postcode, put an asterisk at the end of it. AB1* returns every supplier whose postcode starts with AB1. An asterisk at the start of a postcode does not work.

How do I combine fields?

A supplier is returned only if it matches every box you have filled in, including the First Name, Surname, Email and Telephone boxes. For example, a Company Name of Acme with a Supplier Reference of SUP0000027 returns that supplier, but the same Company Name with the reference of a different supplier returns nothing.

Tip: To find one particular supplier, use its Supplier Reference or its Email on its own. If a combination finds nothing, clear one box at a time.

How do I show totals for each supplier?

Under Display Columns, tick the totals you want to see next to each supplier: Total Invoiced (Gross), Total Invoiced (Net), Total Paid or Prepayments. Total Invoiced (Gross) and Total Invoiced (Net) cannot both be ticked, so ticking one unticks the other. The ticked columns appear before Invoice Balance.

When a column is ticked, a bar with From and To date boxes appears. Click Submit Search to show the totals for that period.

Leave both dates empty to show totals for all time.
Fill in one date or both. Type dates as dd/mm/yyyy, for example 01/11/2026. yyyy-mm-dd also works.
The dates change the totals only. They do not change which suppliers are listed, and Invoice Balance ignores them.

How do I list suppliers by letter?

Above the list, the letter bar shows All and the letters A to Z. Click a letter to list the suppliers whose names start with it, or click All to list every supplier. Under the list, a drop-down sets how many suppliers appear on each page: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 or 150.

Troubleshooting

My search finds nothing

Check which box you used. First Name, Surname, Email and Telephone need the whole value, so part of a name, address or number returns nothing, and a number must have its spaces as saved. Postcode needs the whole postcode, or an asterisk at the end to match the start. Remember that every box you fill in must match.

I typed an asterisk and nothing was found

Only Postcode accepts an asterisk, and only at the end. In the other boxes the asterisk is searched for as a character. Company Name and Supplier Reference already find part of a name or reference, so leave the asterisk out.

I typed a contact’s name in Company Name and nothing was found

Company Name searches business names only. Use the First Name and Surname boxes to find a supplier by its contact.

I used AND or OR and nothing was found

The words AND, OR and NOT do not work as search operators in the supplier search. Type the words in the order they appear in the name.

I get a message asking for a valid search

You clicked Submit Search with every box empty and no Display Columns ticked. Fill in at least one box, then click Submit Search again.

The list is still filtered

Click Cancel Search to close the panel and show all your suppliers again.

I searched for a supplier from a purchase and found the wrong one

The Supplier Reference on this panel is the reference on the supplier’s record. A purchase has its own supplier reference, which is searched from the purchase list. See Search tips - Purchases.