What you need to know
Your customer has chosen to use Graphite Connect to manage their supplier data. The data you input into Graphite Connect is encrypted, protected by two-factor authentication, and you control what you share. Graphite Connect stores your information, allowing you to provide information to your customer quickly. Additionally, the system will automatically notify customers when you make updates to critical information like your address or banking data.
User account setup
Watch this short video to see what it's like to connect with customers using Graphite Connect.
New users
If you haven’t used Graphite Connect before, an email will direct you to create an account. The email you received from Graphite Connect has a button that says “Join Graphite Connect,” which includes a custom URL that is unique to your email address and cannot be shared. If you need to change the email used to log into Graphite, use the "prefer a different email" link to generate a new invitation email and URL for this connection request. On this screen, you’ll be asked to set a password for your user account.
Existing users
If you already have a username and password for Graphite Connect, you will still click on the “Join Graphite Connect” button in the email, but your experience will be different. Instead of an account creation screen, you will be directed to a screen allowing you to select which company profile you want this new request to be connected to. You can either select an existing company or create a new company (described in “Create a new Company Profile” below). Selecting an existing company will be an expedited experience as you will only be confirming the data you have previously entered and responding to questions from your new customer request.
Create a new Company Profile
All new companies must provide the following basic information:
- Confirmation of company name and any DBA, business, or trade names
- Country of registration
- Tax details, unique per country
Single or multi-person organizations
As part of the company creation process, suppliers will be asked the size of their company. Companies with two or more employees will be required to add a second administrator. Security is the utmost importance at Graphite, for both our supplier’s and buyer’s data. By adding a second admin, companies add an additional layer of security to their account, and this aids in the account recovery process.
Companies with an individual employee or sole proprietors will not be asked to add an additional admin. Instead, banking and other sensitive information verification will be done through offline verification from Graphite’s Data Validation Team. There will be future updates for single-person verification to accelerate the process.
Complete required questions
After setting up both your user account and creating a new company profile, you’ll be directed to the connection page. Here you’ll see the names of your company and the company initiating the request for information. You will also see a set of questions to answer. Customers in Graphite Connect may require more or less from their suppliers depending on their internal risk and compliance measures. After confirming that you are responding to the correct customer you can proceed to answer all required questions.
Please note, the color yellow inside of Graphite Connect means that you need to take action. Whenever you see yellow, click it!
Graphite Connect makes it easy to know what you have to do next. You can keep track of what needs to be done in a few ways:
Option 1: Task tray at the top of the screen
If you still have outstanding questions to answer the task tray will appear yellow and notify you there’s a task waiting for you. You can click the blue “View task” button which will direct you to the necessary question, topic, or task.
Option 2: The table of contents on the left side of the screen
Use the table of contents menu on the left side of the screen to get a quick, at-a-glance context of your progress. Topics that still have unanswered required questions are notated by a yellow asterisk and number (notating how many questions there are). Finished topics will display a checkmark.
Connection overview page
You can either navigate to this page from the left side table of contents or you will be navigated to this page if you log out and revisit a customer connection and request. This overview page displays the status and stages of your progress.
Delegate questions
In some situations, you may not be the right person from your organization to answer the topics and questions asked by your customer. In these cases, where the topics have detailed questions, you will be presented with a banner allowing you to invite trusted members of your team to join Graphite to answer the questions. Simply click the “Delegate” button and follow the on-screen instructions.
Certify your data and accept the invitation
When you have completed all of the required tasks and questions, you will be asked to certify that the information is correct. When you click on the "Submit" button, the company that invited you will be notified and you will move to the next step in the connection process.
For now, you are done!
Track the connection process on your homepage or the connection overview page. You will see your connection move from Review to Connect as your customer reviews your information. If necessary, you will be contacted via in-app messaging (which will also send you an email notification).
With your company profile created, you can swiftly connect to any other customers of yours who use Graphite Connect or you can easily, and securely, share your data with outside customers by using Click Share.