Adding a Vendor: Guided Selection and Manual Add

What this covers

Verinode gives you two ways to add a vendor to your stack: a guided flow where IQ interviews you briefly and hands back a ranked shortlist, and a direct form for when you already know exactly who you want to add. Both write into the same vendor relationship record, so either path shows up identically afterward on Your Stack, Renewals, Spend, and Coverage. This article walks through both, screen by screen, along with the exact empty states and computed numbers you'll see along the way.

Verinode does not pick a vendor for you, and it never takes payment for placement. The guided flow narrows the field using your own data, the Verinode research score, and how the rest of the network uses each vendor. You make the call.

Where to find it

Open Vendors from the sidebar at /vendors. The guided flow's entry point, a tile labeled Find a Vendor, sits first in the Take Action row at the top of the page, ahead of any surfaced vendor decisions. It's a permanent fixture of that row, not a one-time nudge that disappears once you've used it.

Two ways in

1. 1Find a Vendor (guided). A five-step wizard confirms what Verinode already knows about your stack, asks what matters to you, and hands back a ranked shortlist pulled from the catalog.
2. 2Add Vendor (classic). A four-step form for adding a specific vendor you've already chosen, with the cost and contract fields tailored to what kind of vendor it is.

The guided flow: Find a Vendor

Opening the wizard

Tap the Find a Vendor tile. Its subhead reads "IQ shortlists the right fit from your data, process signals, and the network." While Verinode loads your prefill data the tile's button reads "Opening…"; if the load fails, a line appears under the tile: "Could not open vendor selection. Tap to try again."

Once it opens, the deck fills the working area behind a translucent glass panel with a copper accent bar at the top (steel blue if you're on the HQ side). A row of five dots along the footer tracks your position; the active step's dot stretches wider than the rest. Close the wizard any time with the X in the header or the Escape key. Nothing is lost, each step saves as you move forward.

Step 1: Choose an Area

The wizard opens here unless you arrived from a specific coverage gap (more on that below). The prompt reads: "Which area do you need a vendor for? Areas you already cover are marked, the rest are open gaps." A search box lets you filter by name. The list sorts uncovered categories to the top and pushes categories where you already run an active vendor to the bottom, each of those marked with the value Covered and the note "You already run a vendor here." Tap any row, covered or not, to continue with that category.

If your search matches nothing, the list reads "No areas match that search." If the category catalog hasn't loaded, it reads "No vendor areas are available yet."

Picking a category creates a draft brief for that category (or reopens one already in progress, so relaunching the wizard for the same area never spawns a duplicate) and advances you to Confirm Your Setup.

Step 2: Confirm Your Setup

This step opens already populated wherever Verinode has data. Under Your current stack, a small tag reads "From your N active vendors" (or "vendor," singular) and lists each tool you already run with its category beside it. If Verinode has nothing on file yet, the section reads instead: "We do not see any tools on file yet. That is fine, we will still find fits, just confirm what matters below."

Below that, if you have any current tools at all, a row of toggle chips asks "Should the new vendor integrate with any of these?", one chip per existing tool. Tap to mark which ones the new vendor needs to talk to.

Last on this step: "How many people would use it?", a plain number field labeled "Seats (optional)." Verinode has no reliable source for this figure yet, so it always starts blank. This is one of the few fields the wizard asks outright rather than pre-filling.

Step 3: What Matters Most

Four prompts, all optional:

• "What does it need to do? (must-haves)", a short text field, comma-separated (e.g. "integrates with our accounting, mobile photo capture, carrier-ready exports").
• "What is not working today?", the pain points you want the new vendor to fix.
• "Monthly budget (optional)", a low and a high dollar figure, "$ to $ /mo."
• "When do you want to decide?", a segmented control: Now, This quarter, or Just exploring.

Step 4: Review and Send

A read-only summary of everything you've entered: Area, Seats, Must integrate with, Must-haves, Not working today, Budget, and Timeline, each showing "Not set" or "None" wherever you left it blank. Below the summary: "IQ will assemble a short list from your data, your process signals, the Verinode score, and how the rest of the network uses each vendor," and underneath that, in smaller text: "Ranked on your data, the Verinode score, and network use. Never paid for placement."

Tap Build my shortlist to submit. Verinode marks the brief submitted and immediately advances you to the shortlist step so its loading message is visible while the reasoner works.

Step 5: Your Shortlist

While the shortlist computes: "Building your shortlist from the catalog, your stack, and the network…"

Once it lands, you may see a one-line grounded read at the top summarizing the call. Below that, up to three ranked picks, each showing:

• A rank number.
• The vendor's name, its Verinode score if one exists (e.g. "7.8 · Strong"), and a fit badge: a green dot reading Fits your stack when the vendor is a clean fit with what you already run, or a yellow dot reading Fits, needs added hardware when it fits but adds a dependency.
• A short narrative sentence on why this vendor was chosen for you.
• Where Verinode has a grounded dollar figure behind the pick, a line like "$X,XXX at risk" or "$X,XXX on the table," with a confidence label, and, in smaller text underneath, the formula behind the number, so the math stays inspectable rather than a bare claim.
• Up to two supporting fit reasons.
• How many operators in the network already run this vendor, when that figure is known.

If nothing in the catalog fits your stack cleanly, the step says so plainly: "Nothing in our catalog fits your stack cleanly for [category]. Verinode Advisory can source options for you." If picks did come back but the field was thin, a note under the list reads: "That is everything in our catalog that fits cleanly. Verinode Advisory can source more if you want a wider search."

Below the picks, a "Why not the others" section lists any vendors Verinode considered and ruled out, each with a one-line reason (for example, needing an integration you don't run). A closing line repeats the trust statement: "Ranked on your data, the Verinode score, and network use. Never paid for placement. This shortlist is saved to your account." Tap Done to close the wizard; the shortlist stays attached to your brief for later reference.

Arriving from a coverage gap

When a Feed decision points you at a specific coverage gap ("Assess options"), the wizard opens straight to Confirm Your Setup with the category already chosen, so you skip Choose an Area entirely. A short grounded read explaining why this gap surfaced appears at the top of that step, above the current-stack section.

The classic form: Add Vendor

Alongside the guided flow, Verinode has a direct four-step form for adding a specific vendor you already know you want, without asking IQ to shortlist for you. It opens as a modal titled Add Vendor, with a numbered stepper across the top: 1. Vendor · 2. Costs · 3. Details · 4. Review.

Step 1: Vendor

A search box, placeholder "e.g. Xactimate, ServiceTitan, QuickBooks…", searches the full vendor catalog, over 100 cataloged vendors. Each result shows the vendor's name and its category. If a category is already scoped, for example when you're filling a specific coverage gap, a small chip names the category with a Clear option, and the search auto-runs against that category the moment the step opens, so you land on results instead of a blank box. With no query and no scope, the field reads "Type to search across 100+ cataloged vendors." A query that returns nothing reads: "No vendors found for '[your search]'. Check back as we expand the catalog."

Tapping a result selects the vendor and moves you to Costs.

Step 2: Costs

Verinode classifies the vendor into one of six groups based on its catalog type, software and professional services, equipment purchase, equipment rental and fleet, insurance, subcontractors, or general supplies, and tailors the cost fields to match:

| Vendor group | Cost label | Billing choices | Extra field | |---|---|---|---| | Software & services | Monthly / Annual Subscription | Monthly, Annual, Quarterly | Seats / Licenses | | Equipment purchase | Purchase Price | One-time only | (none) | | Equipment rental / fleet | Monthly Rental / Lease Cost | Monthly, Quarterly | (none) | | Insurance | Annual Premium | Annual, Monthly installments | (none) | | Subcontractors | Typical Monthly Spend | Monthly, Per project | (none) | | Supplies | Monthly Cost | Monthly, Annual | (none) |

The cost field is always optional: a dollar amount plus a billing selector (shown as a plain label instead of a dropdown when there's only one billing choice, as with a one-time equipment purchase). Software vendors additionally show a Seats / Licenses field, also optional.

Step 3: Details

• Satisfaction (optional), five numbered buttons, 1 through 5. Tap a number to set it, tap the same number again to clear it. "1 = very unhappy · 5 = very happy."
• Switching status, four options: 🔒 Locked ("Mandated"), 🔗 Constrained ("Hard to change"), 📌 Sticky ("Prefer to keep"), and ✅ Flexible ("Open to change"), which is the default. Choosing Locked or Constrained opens a row of reason chips. For Locked: Carrier mandate, Franchise mandate, Regulatory requirement, Integration dependency, Other. For Constrained: Franchise preference, Deep integration, Data migration complexity, Contractual lock, Other. Switching to a different status clears any reason you'd already picked.
• Renewal date (labeled "Contract renewal date" for software, "Rental agreement end date" for rentals, "Policy renewal date" for insurance, and "Contract / agreement renewal" for supplies), optional, and not shown at all for equipment purchases or subcontractors, since neither renews on a fixed date.
• "Who uses [vendor]?", software vendors only, and only when you have team members on file, a checklist to mark which of your people use it.

Step 4: Review

A bordered summary table: Vendor, Category, Cost (the amount and billing cadence, plus a monthly-equivalent figure in parentheses when one can be computed, so an annual premium also shows "(~$X/mo)"), Seats (software only), Satisfaction, Switching (with your reason appended if you gave one), Renewal (where applicable), and Used by (software only). Any field you skipped reads "Not entered."

Tap Add to My Stack to save. The button reads "Saving…" while the write is in flight. The new vendor relationship appears immediately, without a page reload, across Your Stack, Renewals, Spend, Coverage, and the home tiles and metric widgets that read from your stack.

What happens after you add a vendor

Either path writes the same underlying vendor relationship. From there, the new vendor factors into your Coverage picture (the category is no longer a gap), your Spend total, your Renewals list (if it has a renewal date), and, once Verinode has enough signal, a Verinode score with peer context. The guided flow additionally saves your selection brief, so if you come back to add another vendor in a category you've already started, Verinode reuses the in-progress draft instead of starting you over.

Best-practice example

A Feed decision flags that your estimating software category has been an open gap for a while. Tap "Assess options" and the wizard opens straight to Confirm Your Setup with the category already chosen. Your current stack shows two tools you already run, so you toggle one as a required integration, note "carrier-ready exports" as a must-have, set a budget range, and pick "This quarter." On the shortlist, the top pick shows a green "Fits your stack" badge, a Verinode score, and a grounded dollar line showing what leaving the gap open is estimated to be costing. If you'd already known which specific tool you wanted, the classic Add Vendor form would get you there in four shorter steps, with the cost, billing, and renewal fields already tailored to a software vendor.

Data sources

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