Tidy your vendor list

Before you start

• A role that lets you manage finance. That shows FinanceVendors in your menu. In the built-in set, administrators have that permission, and so do members of the “Finance” group. The “finance_manager” role has it too; no group carries it, so an administrator gives it to a person by hand, as Roles, groups and permissions shows.
• At least one bill captured. You do not add vendors by hand: Zonitix creates one each time a bill arrives from a company it has not seen. See Capture and approve a bill.

Read the list

1. 1

   Step 1: Open Vendors

   Go to FinanceVendors. It opens the “Vendors” tab of the Finance page, under the heading “CANONICAL VENDORS”. “Canonical” means the one agreed name for a company, however its name is written on each bill.

   The columns are “VENDOR”, “CATEGORY”, “OWNER”, “CONTRACT”, “TOTAL SPEND” and “ALIASES”.

Correct one vendor

1. 2

   Step 2: Open Edit vendor

   Click the pencil button on the vendor’s row (its tooltip reads “Edit vendor”).

2. 3

   Step 3: Fill in the details

   “Canonical name” is the name you want to see everywhere. “Category” is the kind of spending. “Owner” is the person or team responsible for this supplier. “Contract reference” is your own contract number, if you have one.

   “Aliases (comma-separated)” are the other spellings this company appears under on its bills. A bill carrying one of these names is filed under this vendor.

   If your company has added its own vendor fields, they appear below. Click “Save”.

Set several at once

1. 4

   Step 4: Tick the vendors

   Tick the box on each row, or the box in the header to select all. A button appears above the table: “Set category / owner (N)”.

2. 5

   Step 5: Apply

   Fill in “Category”, “Owner” or both. A field you leave blank is left unchanged on every vendor. Click “Apply to N”.

Merge a duplicate

1. 6

   Step 6: Start from the one to remove

   When the same company is listed twice, click the merge button on the row you want to get rid of (its tooltip reads “Merge into another vendor”).

2. 7

   Step 7: Choose the one to keep

   Under “Merge into”, pick the vendor to keep, and click “Merge”. The duplicate’s bills and aliases move to the vendor you kept, and the duplicate is deleted.

What you should see

If something goes wrong

"No vendors yet — they're created automatically as invoices are ingested."

No bill has been captured yet. Upload a first bill under Finance, Bills and the vendor appears here.

The same company keeps coming back as a new vendor

Its bills use a spelling Zonitix has not been told about. Merge the new one into the one you keep, or add the spelling to Aliases on the vendor you keep.

After a merge the old vendor is still listed, marked "Merged into …"

It has bills in a locked month, which stay where they are. That is expected. New bills already go to the vendor you kept.

"Could not save the vendor.", "Could not update the selected vendors." or "Could not merge the vendor."

Try again. If the message gives a reason, follow it. If it keeps failing, contact Zonitix support.

There is no Vendors entry in your menu

The Vendors tab is shown only to a role that lets you manage finance. Ask an administrator for one.

Still stuck? See When something goes wrong, or Contact Zonitix support.

Where next

• Capture and approve a bill
• Track what you spend on software
• Custom fields and managed lists
• Close the month