Transcript
This is how my agency manages vendors today. One portal, clear access, and better decisions. I'm going to show you how to make this for yourself.
I'm Phil Pallen. I run a branding agency, and I spend a lot of time coordinating with external vendors. Today, I'm partnering with Softr to show you how I built a vendor management portal for my business, something that replaces scattered docs, inbox chaos, and manual decision making.
This is not like a theoretical setup. This is something that we have structured and we actually use in 2026 to manage creative vendors, contractors, and partners. And, of course, you can adapt this for your own business.
Before I show you how it works, let's talk about what this replaces. Here is what vendor management usually looks like in practice. Vendor details are scattered across spreadsheets and email threads. Pricing is remembered instead of documented, and notes live in people's heads.
Decisions get made in Slack messages that are impossible to track later, and there is no single source of truth anyone can rely on. The issue really isn't the number of vendors that you work with, it's the fragmentation.
In my case, the more photographers we collaborate with, the harder it gets to manage. What starts as a few trusted photographers quickly turns into a system that relies on memory, context switching, and constant follow-ups. This is especially true when projects overlap and timelines move fast, which they often do.
Here is the vendor hub that I built to replace all of that. This is the vendor management portal that I'm running inside Softr, giving me a single central list of every vendor that we want to work with. I love it because I can see contact details, categories, internal notes, approval status, and ratings all at a glance.
Pricing also lives in here, which means I'm not digging through old emails or trying to remember what someone charged the last time we worked together. Trying to find that email is a struggle you all know. For example, if I'm looking for a photographer, I can immediately see who is approved, who is still being trialed, and who we decided not to work with again.
I also see the notes that explain why. This context is super important, especially when you're making decisions quickly or handing off work to someone else on your team. Since this is an internal-facing hub, it is built for teams, not just admins.
Anyone on my team can open this and understand who a vendor is, what they're good at, and whether they're the right fit for a specific project. Instead of asking around or relying on memory, everything starts here. That alone removes a huge amount of friction from day-to-day vendor management.
So now I'm going to show you how to build this from scratch in Softr. It might sound like a big task, but it's actually very manageable once you see the flow. I'm going to connect a database using Softr Databases.
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Note from Softr: The speaker here walks through building an app completely from scratch. Another great option is to simply open the AI co-builder and prompt for what you want. It builds complete apps, pages, or database schemas instantly, while still letting you tweak everything manually later.
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In other videos, I've synced Softr with external tools, but for this build, I'm using Softr Databases natively. Once that's selected, Softr gives me a few starter blocks. I strongly want full control here, so I'm going to go ahead and delete those and start clean.
I begin with the layout, but you can really begin in any way you want. I'm going to click this navigation bar and set it to be at the top. While I'm at it, I'm going to drop in my branded logo and set the accent colors to match my brand.
The portal already feels familiar before I add any functionality. I'm big on branding, so that is often where I start with this stuff, and it is looking good. Next, I'm going to create a tab container because there will be multiple tabs.
This is what lets me separate the different parts of the portal without creating multiple pages. I add tabs for vendors, for pricing, for tasks, and finally, for the AI recommender. I like being able to customize the icons here because it makes the interface clearer and easier to scan.
Once the structure is in place, I add a table and connect it to my creative vendors database. As soon as I do that, Softr pulls in the existing data automatically. From there, I customize what is visible on the interface.
I click and drag to add fields and remove anything that I don't need. I'm definitely going to include a notes field here so that my team can leave context, which is really important. For example, we easily track whether we've worked with a photographer before and how that experience went.
I also love the ratings here because they are really handy, and all of this is shaping up beautifully. What I like here is how forgiving the process is when you make a mistake. I just noticed that I populated my vendor data on the wrong tab.
It landed under the AI recommender, but it really should be under the vendor tab. I will just move this out and then move it back in under the vendor tab, which is where it should be. Really, that's it.
In a few steps, you go from an empty canvas to a working vendor hub that is fully connected to live data and ready to build on. Now, if you don't want to build from scratch, you don't have to. Softr also has a whole bunch of templates available for you to start with.
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Note from Softr: Utilizing our extensive library of App templates allows you to launch much faster. These templates are particularly helpful for building client portals and creating complex internal hubs without having to start from scratch.
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This specific template comes with vendor records, tasks, documents, and invoices completely pre-wired, so you're not starting from scratch. When you open the template, you get a full vendor-facing experience right out of the box. Vendors can log in, see their approval status, access tasks, upload documents, and submit invoices.
This template is a little more robust than what I'm building, which focuses more on internal use. Internally, your team gets dashboards, user management, and a clear overview of what's happening across all vendors. What I like about starting from the template is that it gives you a working system immediately.
I'm telling you, the available templates are really impressive. From there, you can just simplify everything if you don't need all of the extra features. You can remove sections you don't need, rename fields to match your business, and take it in whatever direction you want.
Whether you're starting from scratch or you're starting from a template, the key idea here remains the same. Your vendor data lives in one place, your workflows are connected to live records, and everyone is working from the same source of truth. This is where vendor management becomes truly practical.
I skimmed over this a second ago, but I want to show you the tasks feature in more detail. Instead of juggling emails and messages, I can see every active job and assignment in one place. Each task is tied to a specific vendor, has a clear status, and keeps all relevant context attached.
This stays organized from the original brief to where the work stands right now, and all of this is customizable. This means I don't have to constantly follow up and ask for updates. I can open this view and immediately see what is not started, what is in progress, and what is already complete.
Because tasks are connected to vendor records, I always know exactly who is responsible for what. Pricing also stays visible while I'm scoping work, which is a small detail that makes a big difference. If I'm assigning a new task, I can quickly sanity check costs before committing.
Over time, this builds a clear history of what we've worked on, who has delivered it, and how that relationship has evolved. Not everyone should see everything, and that control matters. At the foundation of this portal is a shared database that holds all the vendor, job, and task information in one place.
This database works as that single source of truth I mentioned, meaning everything you see in the interface is simply powered by it. Internal team members can securely see the full vendor record that includes pricing, internal notes, ratings, and historical context across past projects.
This is the specific view your team uses to make decisions, assign work, and compare vendors over time. Vendors, on the other hand, only see what is relevant to them. They can view their own tasks, their documents, and their invoices.
They are never exposed to internal notes, private feedback, or the data of other vendors. Sensitive information stays private by default, so internal commentary and decision history never leaks outside your team. You define user groups here, connect them to the underlying database, and set simple data restrictions.
From there, Softr enforces those rules across the entire app automatically. As the portal grows with more vendors, more jobs, and more data, access consistently stays predictable and secure. This is where things get really interesting, and honestly, this is super cool.
This is the vendor recommendation assistant that I built using the Vibe-Coding block in Softr. This feature was quite literally built from a chat, and as I scroll through that chat, you can see the conversation we had to arrive at this tool. Let me start by showing it directly to you.
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Note from Softr: When you find a standard component missing or run into design limitations, the Vibe-Coding block steps in. If a native block doesn't quite fit your advanced needs, you can use the Vibe-Coding block to simply prompt for the exact custom component you want, and it will generate it and connect to the database seamlessly.
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You simply describe the project needs, dropping in things like budget and location. In this case, I'm asking for a photographer in New York within a specific budget range. When I run this, the AI doesn't just guess.
It reads directly from my live vendor data, pulling in categories, ratings, pricing, and internal context. It then recommends the best match based entirely on what is actually in the system. Just as importantly, it respects the same permissions that I set up earlier using user groups.
It only considers approved vendors and never exposes internal notes or restricted fields to users who shouldn't see them. The output remains super useful and entirely secure. I specifically used the Vibe-Coding block here because what I wanted to build didn't exist as a standard building block.
