About Setting Up Vendor Records

Adding vendor records to Accounts Payable involves transferring your existing vendor information to Sage 300 ERP and selecting options that let you process payables more effectively.

You use the A/P Vendors screen to enter most of your vendor information, including:

• The vendor number (the code you use to identify the account).
• Whether the account is on hold.
• An optional "short name," (an abbreviation or acronym that represents the vendor).
• The vendor's name, address, Web site, e-mail address (one for the vendor and one for your contact), and phone numbers.
• The date on which you started to do business with the vendor.
• Comments you want to store with the vendor record or want to print on correspondence with the vendor, display during transaction entry, or keep for other purposes.
• Additional information your company wants to include in the optional fields created on the A/P Options screen for your vendor records, if you purchased the separate Optional Fields package from Sage 300 ERP.

Tip: If you have a large number of one-time vendors, you should add a "miscellaneous vendor" record, so you can process payments using Create Payment Batch and keep statistical data for this class of vendor. Make sure that you select the option Generate Separate Payments For Each Invoice for the miscellaneous vendor (on the Processing tab of the Vendors screen).

Vendor Numbers

For each vendor record, you assign a unique vendor number, using up to 12 characters, including letters, numbers, and symbols.

If your current system for assigning vendor numbers makes sense in Sage 300 ERP, you may want to transfer your present system. However, we recommend that you take the time now to evaluate your current system, because the best time to switch systems is when you already have to recreate all your vendor records.

If you do not have an established system for assigning vendor numbers, you should develop a system before you add any vendor records to Accounts Payable.

Your numbering system should let you organize the records as you require, such as alphabetically, by region, and for reporting purposes. The system should also allow for expansion as your business grows.

Processing Options

You identify the ways in which you process transactions for each vendor, specifying the following information:

• The account set, which determines the general ledger accounts to which the vendor's transactions are distributed. Each set includes accounts for payables control, purchase discounts, and prepayments.

  If you use multicurrency accounting, the account set also includes unrealized and realized exchange gain and loss accounts.

• The default payment terms used to calculate the due date, discount period, and discount amount for vendor invoices.
• The bank code and credit limit associated with the vendor.

  The vendor bank code is the bank account on which you usually write checks to pay the vendor.

• The method for distributing invoice amounts to general ledger accounts.

  You may distribute amounts by distribution code, distribution sets, or by general ledger account code.

• How you check for duplicate vendor invoices.
• Whether you pay each invoice separately or cover several invoices with a single payment.
• Tax information for vendor invoices, and whether the vendor is subject to 1099 (for US vendors) or CPRS (for Canadian vendors) reporting.

  The tax group for the vendor determines the taxing authorities and tax class for each authority to which you would pay tax on an invoice. This information tells Accounts Payable how to calculate tax amounts on the vendor's invoices.

• If you use multicurrency accounting, the rate type for converting source currencies to their functional-currency equivalents.

In addition to the information you can enter for each vendor in the Vendors screen, Accounts Payable automatically adds the statistics it collects from all transactions posted to each vendor account

Note: If you select the Allow Edit Of Statistics option on the A/P Options screen, you can enter statistical figures when you are setting up a new Accounts Payable system, and revise them as needed.

You can define additional remit-to addresses on the A/P Remit-To Locations Screen. For more information, see Adding, Modifying, or Deleting a Remit-to Location for a Vendor.

If you regularly pay the vendor for the same order, such as monthly rent, you can create recurring payable records, using the Recurring Payables Setup screen. For more information, see About Recurring Payables.

Short Names

You can enter a code or "short name" of up to ten characters for each of your vendors. Short names are a means by which you can list vendors in alphabetical order (or any other order) on reports, and still include the full vendor name in the vendor record, because Accounts Payable can sort records by short name first.

You can print short names on vendor statements. You might then want to use them for a purpose that is unrelated to vendor names.

You may have designed your vendor numbers so that they list vendors in alphabetical order or in another order that meets your requirements. In that case, you might choose not to use short names at all.

Inactive and On Hold Account Statuses

You can change the status of a vendor account to either of the following:

• Inactive. You can set a vendor record inactive prior to deleting it, to ensure that no further transactions are processed for the account.

  Note: You cannot set a vendor record inactive if there are any unposted transactions for the vendor.

• On Hold. If you place a vendor account on hold, you cannot enter payments or prepayments for the vendor, or otherwise decrease the balance in the vendor account, using the Create Payment Batch screen. However, you can still create invoices for the vendor. You can also pay the vendor using the Payment Entry screen.

Tax Information

Whether you are charged taxes on purchases or are tax exempt, you enter all the necessary tax information in the vendor record. Accounts Payable can then automatically calculate all the applicable taxes so you can verify the invoices you receive from vendors.

To specify tax information in the Vendors screen, you first select the tax group that includes the taxing authorities and tables that apply in the vendor's geographical area. (You set up tax groups in the Tax Services screens in Common Services.)

You then select the taxing authorities that tax sales to the vendor and the tax class that indicates the type of sales on which the vendor is charged tax by each authority.

If the vendor has a tax-exemption number or a registration number, such as for the Canadian Goods and Services Tax (GST), you also enter it. You can also include the number in the information you print on invoices and statements.

Vendor Statistics

Accounts Payable keeps period and activity statistics for vendors, and displays them in the Vendors screen. For more information, see About Vendor and Vendor Group Statistics.

Reporting Tax Amounts in Statistics

The totals kept for invoices, credit notes, and debit notes can include or exclude tax amounts posted with the document. You can also see, but not change, the outstanding balance, open document count, current prepayment amount, and number of prepayments for the account.

Vendor Optional Fields

If you use Transaction Analysis and Optional Fields Creator, you can assign optional fields to store additional information you want to keep with vendor records.

You use the Optional Fields tab in the vendor record to assign optional fields to particular vendors.

Optional fields that are marked for automatic insertion in vendor records appear on the tab, along with their default values. You can accept the optional fields that are displayed as defaults, or you can delete them.

You can also assign any additional optional fields that are defined in Accounts Payable for vendors and vendor groups. The program assigns default values to the optional fields, as follows:

• For optional fields that match those used by the vendor group, values from the vendor group record appear as defaults.
• If no default entry is specified for an optional field in the vendor group record, the program uses the value specified in the optional fields record.

You can accept or change the default entries. However, if the optional field is validated, you must use a value that is defined for the optional field in Common Services.

Retainage Options for Vendors

If you use retainage accounting in your Accounts Payable system, you should also specify default settings for each vendor, including the retainage percentage, retention period, and retainage terms.

When you add a new vendor, Accounts Payable displays on the Invoicing tab of the new vendor record the default retainage percentage, retention period, and retainage terms you specified on the A/P Options screen, but you can change these settings for individual vendors.

When you enter an invoice, credit note, or debit note for a vendor, Accounts Payable uses the settings from the vendor record as defaults.

Processing Vendor Comments

You can enter any number of comments in vendor records, using up to 2,509 characters for each comment.

Tip: To view an entire comment on a separate screen (rather than having to scroll to see it), double-click in the Comment column.

When you enter a comment, you can also enter a follow-up date when you want to check on the comment, as well as an expiration date when you want to delete the comment. Once the expiration date is reached, Accounts Payable automatically deletes the comment when you use the A/P Clear History screen to clear comments for the vendor number.

About Importing Vendor Records

You can import vendor records into Accounts Payable from non-Sage 300 ERP programs, instead of entering them in the Vendors screen. For more information, see About Importing and Setup and Vendor Records

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