Overview
Agency Suppliers in Tern allow agency admins to create and manage a list of suppliers for their advisors. This feature helps streamline the booking process by prioritizing agency-preferred suppliers in search results, ensuring consistency in supplier details across bookings.
How to Access Agency Suppliers
Navigate to the Library in Tern.
Click on the Agency Suppliers tab.
Here, you can view and manage existing agency suppliers or create new ones.
When you export your supplier list to CSV, each row includes a direct link back to the supplier's page in Tern. Click the link from your spreadsheet to jump straight to that supplier.
Creating a New Agency Supplier
Click Create New Agency Supplier.
Search for an existing supplier within the Tern network as a starting point or create a new supplier.
Select the supplier and customize the details to match your agency's preferences, including:
Category
Website
Status (Active or Archived)
Description (including booking and contact details, login information, and other relevant notes for advisors)
Save the new supplier.
Updating an Existing Agency Supplier
If a supplier already exists in your list, editing its details will update all associated bookings.
Example: If you modify the name or details for Hyatt, any existing bookings associated with that supplier will be automatically updated.
This helps maintain consistency across the agency's records.
Archiving a Supplier
If a supplier is no longer relevant for your agency, you can archive it.
Archived suppliers will not appear in future supplier searches but will remain in past booking records for reference.
How Advisors Use Agency Suppliers
Advisors can view agency suppliers within their Library, but they cannot edit supplier details or add new ones unless they are agency admins.
When creating a new booking, advisors searching for a supplier will see agency suppliers listed first, followed by all other suppliers in the Tern network
Marking a Supplier as Agency Preferred
Agency admins can designate specific suppliers as agency preferred — a way to highlight the suppliers your agency works with most often and recommends to advisors.
To mark a supplier as preferred:
Navigate to Library → Agency Suppliers.
Open any supplier's detail page.
Find the Agency preferred field and set it to Yes. This saves automatically.
What advisors see:
A gold star (★) appears next to preferred suppliers in the supplier picker when adding a booking. This makes it easy to spot agency-recommended options at a glance without changing anything else about how the picker works.
Preferred suppliers are still grouped with other agency suppliers in the picker — the star is just a visual marker.
Filtering to preferred suppliers:
On the Agency Suppliers list page, check the Preferred suppliers only toggle in the filters panel to narrow the list down to only the suppliers your agency has marked as preferred. This is helpful for quickly auditing or managing your preferred supplier list.
Agency Supplier Terms & Conditions and Cancellation Policies
Agency admins can add terms and conditions (T&Cs) and cancellation policies directly to each agency supplier. These fields ensure that advisors always have the correct supplier policies available when building trips and sending authorizations to clients.
Where policies are saved
Where a policy saves depends on the type of supplier entry being used.
Agency-owned suppliers (entries your agency created in the Library): policies save to the agency and are shared across all advisors in your agency.
Community and global suppliers (entries not owned by your agency): policies save to the individual advisor's account and are private to that advisor. If a colleague uses the same entry and adds their own terms, those terms will not appear when you open it.
To add or update T&Cs and cancellation policies:
Go to Agency Suppliers in your Library.
Select an existing supplier or click Create New Agency Supplier.
In the supplier editor, scroll to the Terms & Conditions and Cancellation Policies sections.
Add as many entries as you need. These can be:
Links to a supplier's official T&C or policy page
File uploads of a supplier's official T&C or policy page
Plain text summarizing the rules for quick reference
Click Save & Close.
Tip: link to the supplier's policy page rather than typing out the policy text. If the supplier updates their page, your advisors always see the current version without any manual updates in Tern. For policies that vary by booking type, paste the link and add a short plain-text summary of the key cancel-by date or refund condition for that specific booking.
Editing T&Cs and Cancellation Policies:
Changes apply to future bookings only. Existing activities already in use by your advisors are not overwritten.
How it works for advisors:
When an advisor selects an agency supplier on a booking, they will see the agency's saved T&Cs and cancellation policies available to apply.
Advisors can also add their own T&Cs or cancellation policies on top of the agency-provided ones if needed.
How the policy is selected: Tern applies the following logic when an advisor selects a supplier.
If one policy is saved, Tern auto-selects it.
If two policies are saved and exactly one is agency-owned, Tern auto-selects the agency-owned one.
If two agency-owned policies are saved, or if there are three or more policies in total, the advisor is prompted to choose the correct one.
Auto-population requires authorizations to be enabled. If your account has authorizations turned on (under Settings > Trip Settings > Payment Authorizations), selecting a supplier will automatically pre-fill the T&C and cancellation policy fields with the saved policy. If authorizations are not enabled, saved policies will still appear as options when you open those fields manually, but nothing will be pre-filled automatically.
For more on how authorizations work, see Payments & Authorizations in Tern.
Supplier Terms and Cancellation Policies in Tern
Supplier terms and conditions and cancellation policies are tied to your bookings for chargeback protection. Here's how they work and how to keep them accurate.
How terms and conditions save in Tern
When you add terms and conditions or a cancellation policy to a supplier entry, Tern saves that information. Where it saves depends on the type of supplier entry you're using.
Community and global suppliers (supplier entries not owned by your agency): policies save to your personal account. They are private to you. If a colleague uses the same supplier entry and adds their own terms, those terms will not appear when you open that entry.
Agency-owned suppliers (entries your agency admin created or added to the Library): policies save to the agency, not to your personal account. All advisors in your agency share those saved policies. Your admin controls what's stored at the agency level.
If your agency has added terms to a supplier, those policies will appear when you select that supplier.
How auto-population works (for accounts with authorizations enabled)
If your account has authorizations enabled, selecting a supplier will automatically pre-fill the terms and conditions and cancellation policy fields with your saved policies.
If authorizations are not enabled on your account, saved policies will not pre-fill automatically. Your saved terms will still appear as an option when you open those fields manually — though note that only your most recently saved personal policy for a given supplier will be shown, not older versions.
Why there are multiple entries for the same supplier
The supplier list in Tern is populated by advisors across the platform. When you search for Royal Caribbean, you may see entries labeled "Royal Caribbean NRD," "Royal Caribbean Trip Protection," or entries created by other agencies.
Duplicates appear over time. The practical approach is to pick one entry and use it consistently. That way, your saved terms carry forward reliably.
If your agency has marked a supplier as preferred, you will see a gold star next to it in the picker. Using a preferred supplier means your agency's saved terms and conditions will be available on the booking.
Why linking to a URL is better than typing out a policy
If you paste a link to the supplier's official cancellation policy page rather than typing the policy, any updates the supplier makes to that page are reflected automatically. You do not need to go back and update your booking.
For policies that vary by booking type (refundable versus non-refundable deposits, for example), one approach that works well: paste the link, then add a single line of plain text summarizing the key cancel-by date or refund condition for that specific booking. Clients see the important detail at a glance, and the full current policy is always accessible through the link.
If your terms are not saving between sessions
First, confirm you are selecting the exact same supplier entry each time. Even entries with nearly identical names may behave differently.
If you have been consistent with the same entry and terms are still not carrying over, contact support. Include the supplier name and the specific entry you are using.
I'm getting an error when marking a booking as booked — it says the supplier must match my agency. What do I do?
This means the supplier you selected isn't in your agency's supplier library yet. You have two options: (1) Ask your agency admin to add the supplier to the Agency Supplier library (and map it to your host supplier, if applicable), then select it on the booking. (2) As a temporary workaround, select "None (Independent Booking)" to save the booking now. You can update the supplier field later once your admin adds the supplier.