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Supplier Negotiation Brief

When your supplier's rep calls, or you sit down to renegotiate prices, the operator who knows their numbers wins. The negotiation brief puts those numbers in your hand: exactly what you have bought from a supplier over the last 12 months, what it cost, how their prices have moved, and where you already have cheaper alternatives on file.

Because the brief is built from your matched invoices, there is nothing to prepare. If you have been putting your invoices through Brikly, the brief is already waiting.

Finding the brief​

  1. Go to CostingBrik > Suppliers.
  2. Open the supplier you want to talk to.
  3. Open the Negotiation Brief tab.

The tab is the whole brief. It opens with the headline numbers:

  • 12-month spend (ex VAT) - everything you have bought from them in the last year.
  • Invoices - how many documents that spend arrived on.
  • Products - how many distinct items you buy from them.
  • Share of purchase spend - how much of your total ingredient and packaging spend goes to this supplier.

Below them sit the three sections described next: everything you buy, the price changes you have confirmed, and your leverage. Each product name links to its ingredient or packaging page, so you can check a price history without leaving the brief.

Click View brief (PDF) to open the same brief as a document, ready to print or keep open during the call. The tab and the PDF are built from the same figures, so they always agree.

info

The Negotiation Brief tab only appears for goods suppliers. Expense suppliers (utilities, services and similar) have no purchase volume to negotiate with.

What the brief contains​

What you buy from them​

Every product you have purchased in the last 12 months, in the units you would actually say out loud - "214 x 750ml bottles", "36 x pack of 100" - alongside the total ex-VAT spend, average cost per pack, and the direction their price has moved across the year. Both ingredients and packaging are included.

This is the core of your position. "I buy 214 bottles of syrup from you a year - what can you do on price?" is a very different conversation from guessing.

Price changes you have confirmed​

A summary of the price increases and decreases you have confirmed through price review, with the biggest movers listed. If a supplier has put prices up six times this year, this section says so, with dates and percentages.

tip

This section only counts changes you confirmed through the price review flow, so treat it as a minimum. The per-product price movement in the table above catches changes you never formally reviewed.

Your leverage​

The final section lists ingredients where another supplier on your books already sells the same item for less, with the potential annual saving based on the volume you actually buy. This section is for your eyes, not the rep's - it tells you how credible your alternative is if the conversation stalls. If nothing is listed, no other supplier on your books currently beats them on the items you buy.

How the numbers are calculated​

  • All spend is ex VAT, because that is what you actually pay once VAT is reclaimed.
  • Credit notes are netted off - a returned case counts as money you did not spend.
  • Only matched invoice lines count, so the figures reflect items Brikly has identified, not raw document totals.
  • Duplicate and archived invoices are excluded automatically.

Asking for the brief in chat​

If you use the Brikly Connector, you can ask ChatGPT or Claude directly - "what do I buy from Brief Foods?" or "I'm meeting my coffee supplier, what should I know?" - and the assistant pulls the same brief, with the same numbers. The full brief and its printable PDF live on the Negotiation Brief tab of the supplier's page in the web app.

Making the brief stronger​

The brief is only as complete as your invoice history:

  • Put all invoices through Brikly, including packaging and consumables - cups and lids are often exactly what a rep expects you to challenge them on.
  • Confirm price changes when Brikly flags them, so the price change section builds a documented history.
  • Keep occasional supermarket top-ups marked as one-off suppliers so they do not distort your leverage figures.