Vendors: your approved list, imports and documents

The vendor list is where your firm keeps the people and companies it pays. Bills, purchase orders and requisitions all draw on it, so details are typed once and only approved vendors can be paid. Open it from Firm tools, then Vendors.

What you can do with vendors

You want to	You need
See the vendor list	Access to Firm tools
Add, import or edit vendors, and add documents	The Manage vendors permission
Approve or reject vendors	The Approve vendors permission, or to be a named approver in your approval policy
Add a custom field through an import	The Manage settings permission
Remove a document someone else added	The Approve vendors permission

Owners and admins hold all of these. To give them to someone else, see Permission policies: control who can do what.

Find a vendor

The Vendors tab lists each vendor with their phone, approval state and bank.

• Search looks through the name, email, phone, vendor code, contact person, services, category and location.
• Filters narrow the list by approval state, category or location. Category and location options come from your own vendors, so fill those fields in to make them useful.
• When vendors are waiting, an awaiting approval button shows how many and takes you straight to them.

Add a vendor

1. Click Add vendor.
2. Enter the Name. It is the only required field.
3. Add what you have: contact details, what they supply, payment details and any custom fields.
4. Click Add vendor to save.

To change a vendor, click its row. To add documents to a new vendor, save it first, then open it again.

What each field is for

Section	Field	What it does
Vendor	Name	How the vendor appears everywhere, and the name on bills, purchase orders and requisitions
Vendor	Email, Phone, Address	How to reach them. A purchase order can be emailed to the address here
Vendor	Vendor code	Your own short reference. It must be unique in your firm, and it is the most reliable way to match on import
Vendor	Contact person, Their role	Who you deal with, shown on purchase orders
What they supply	Category	A grouping such as Hotel or Caterer. It becomes a filter
What they supply	Location or state	Where they operate. It becomes a filter
What they supply	Services or specification	What exactly they provide. It can be searched
Payment details	Bank, Account name, Account number, Bank code	Copied to a requisition when the vendor is picked. A change by a non-admin needs approval
Payment details	Tax ID or TIN	Copied to a requisition, and used as the vendor ID on purchase orders
Payment details	Notes	For your firm only. Notes are not copied to requisitions

Who approves a vendor

Only an approved vendor can be paid on a bill, purchase order or requisition.

What happens	Result
An admin adds, imports or edits a vendor	Approved straight away
Anyone else adds or imports a vendor	Waits for approval and cannot be paid until then
Anyone else changes the bank, account name, account number or bank code of an approved vendor	Goes back for approval
Anyone else edits a rejected vendor	Goes back for approval

If your firm has set approvers under Settings, Approval Policy, Vendors, they decide. Otherwise your workspace admins do, and the first to act decides. See Approvals: review and sign off.

Approve or reject

1. Open the Vendors tab and click the awaiting approval button, or use the link in your notification.
2. Open the vendor to check the details and documents.
3. Use the tick at the end of the row to approve, or the cross to reject.
4. When rejecting, give a Reason. It is required, and the proposer sees it on the vendor.

What each state means

State	Can be paid?	What to do
Approved	Yes	Nothing. It appears in the pickers on bills, purchase orders and requisitions.
Awaiting approval	No	Wait for an approver.
Rejected	No	Open the vendor, read the reason, fix the details and save. That sends it for approval again.

Import vendors from a CSV

1. On the Vendors tab, click Import CSV.
2. Click Download sample CSV if you want a file with the columns already set up. Replace its example rows with your vendors.
3. Choose your CSV file. The first row must be the column headings.
4. Under Match your columns, check each field points at the right column. Most match on their own.
5. Review New columns, if any appear. See below.
6. Tick Update vendors that already exist if the file should change vendors you already hold.
7. Check the first row preview, then click Import.

The columns can be in any order, and only Name is required. A file can hold up to 5,000 rows.

Column headings that match on their own

Capitals, spaces, full stops and underscores make no difference, so Vendor Code, vendor_code and VENDORCODE all match.

Field	Heading to use	Also recognised
Name (required)	Name	Vendor, Vendor Name, Supplier, Supplier Name, Company, Company Name, Organisation, Business Name
Vendor code	Vendor Code	Code, Vendor ID, Supplier Code, Reference
Category	Category	Vendor Category, Vendor Type, Type, Group
Services	Services	Specification, Services Offered, Service, Expertise, Scope, Description
Email	Email	E-mail, Email Address, Mail
Phone	Phone	Phone Number, Phone No, Number, Contact Number, Mobile, Tel, Telephone, GSM
Contact person	Contact Person	Contact, Contact Name
Designation	Designation	Title, Role
Location	Location	State, Region, City, Country
Address	Address	Street, Office Address
Tax ID	TIN	Tax ID, Tax, VAT
Bank name	Bank Name	Bank
Account number	Account Number	Account No, Account, Acct No
Account name	Account Name	Acct Name
Bank code	Bank Code	Sort Code, Swift
Currency	Currency	CCY
Notes	Notes	Note, Comment, Comments, Remarks

A worked example

Suppose your spreadsheet looks like this:

Vendor Name	Email	Bank	Account No	Tax Clearance	Insurance Expiry	Old Ref
Example Hotels Ltd	bookings@example.com	Example Bank	0012345678	TCC-2026-01	2027-01-31
Example Caterers	food@example.com	Other Bank	0098765432	TCC-2026-02

• Vendor Name, Email, Bank and Account No match their fields on their own.
• Tax Clearance and Insurance Expiry appear under New columns, ticked and marked New field.
• Old Ref is not offered, because nothing is in it.
• Each vendor gets the two new fields. Example Caterers shows Insurance Expiry empty, ready to fill in later.

Before you import

• Account numbers: Excel removes leading zeros. Format that column as Text before you save, and check the first row preview.
• Currency: a blank cell is saved as NGN, so fill it in for vendors you pay in another currency.
• File type: save as CSV, not as an Excel workbook.
• Sample rows: delete the two example rows, which are marked “delete this row”.

New columns become custom fields

A column that matches no vendor field appears under New columns, so nothing is lost and nothing is added without you seeing it.

• Leave a column ticked to keep it. It becomes a custom field on every vendor, not only the ones in this file.
• Change the name in the box if you want it to read differently.
• Untick a column to leave it out.
• Existing field means your firm already has that field, so the values go straight into it.
• A column with nothing in it is not offered.

Only someone who can manage workspace settings can add a field. Anyone else sees new columns greyed out, and those columns are not imported. Their import still fills fields that already exist.

Vendors you already have

Each row is compared with your list by vendor code, then email, then name. An email shared by vendors with different names is not used to match.

Update vendors that already exist	A row that matches
Left off	Is skipped. Nothing changes, and no duplicate is created.
Ticked	Updates that vendor. Only columns you imported change, and a blank cell never clears a saved value.

To add a new column’s values to vendors you already hold, tick this box.

After the import

The window shows how many vendors were created, updated and skipped, any fields added, and the rows that failed with the reason. Up to 20 failures are listed. Row 1 is your first vendor, not the heading, so row 3 in the list is row 4 in your spreadsheet.

Custom fields

Custom fields hold whatever else your firm tracks about a vendor, such as a tax clearance number or an insurance expiry date. They appear on the vendor form, under Custom fields, for every vendor. A vendor that had no value in the import shows the field empty, ready to fill in. Clear a value and save to remove it.

Imported fields hold plain text.

Documents

Keep the papers that show who a vendor is on their record: the CAC certificate or other company registration, KYC documents, and anything else your due diligence needs.

1. Open the vendor. If it is new, save it first.
2. Scroll to Documents.
3. Choose CAC document, KYC document or Other.
4. Click Add document and pick the files.

Documents save as soon as you add them, so you do not need to click Save. Files can be PDFs or images (JPEG, PNG or GIF), up to 10MB each, with up to 30 on a vendor.

Anyone who can manage vendors can add a document. Only an admin or the person who added it can remove it. Adding and removing are recorded in the audit log.

Anyone holding a document’s link can open it, so share links with care.

A due diligence routine

A simple way to keep your vendor list reliable:

1. Collect the company registration or CAC certificate and KYC papers when you take on a vendor.
2. Add the vendor, then open it and add the documents.
3. Track what expires with custom fields, such as a tax clearance number or an insurance expiry date.
4. Have the approver open the documents before approving.

Pay a vendor from a requisition

1. On a new requisition, leave the payee type on Vendor and search for the vendor.
2. Picking a vendor fills in the Bank, Account name, Account number and TIN.
3. The rest of their record appears in a panel below the vendor: code, category, services, contact, phone, email, location, address, bank code and currency.

• The bank fields can be changed on this requisition. That does not change the vendor’s record.
• To correct the panel, edit the vendor, then pick them again.
• Picking a different vendor replaces everything. Details you typed before picking any vendor stay in place, and only empty fields fill.
• Switching to Other payee or to an advance to staff clears the vendor’s details.
• The requisition keeps its own copy. Editing the vendor later does not change a requisition already raised.

If the vendor’s currency differs from the requisition’s, a warning appears. The requisition’s currency does not change on its own, so check it before you save.

For the rest of the journey, see From requisition to retirement: the full guide.

What happens as you change the payee

You do this	What happens to the details
Pick a vendor on an empty form	All their details fill in
Type bank details, then pick a vendor	What you typed stays, and only empty fields fill
Pick the same vendor again	Your changes stay, and only empty fields fill
Pick a different vendor	Everything is replaced, even with blanks
Switch to Other payee, or pick a staff member	The vendor’s details are cleared. Your payment note stays

Where the details appear afterwards

• The requisition’s details view shows all of them.
• The PDF shows the bank, account name, account number, TIN, bank code, vendor code, contact, phone, email and address.

Delete a vendor

Click the bin at the end of the row. A vendor with bills cannot be deleted, so remove or reassign those bills first. Deleting a vendor withdraws any approval request still open for them. Requisitions already raised keep their own copy of the details.

Troubleshooting an import

What you see	Why	What to do
That file has no readable rows	The file has no heading row, or no vendors under it	Check the first row is headings and at least one row follows
Map the Name column before importing	No column matched Name	Choose your name column under Match your columns
Some rows have no name and will be reported as errors	Those rows have an empty name	Fill them in, or import and fix them afterwards. The other rows still import
Everything was skipped	Those vendors already exist	Tick Update vendors that already exist and import again
Columns landed in the wrong field	A heading matched something you did not expect	Change it under Match your columns, or choose Not imported
Too many rows	The file is over 5,000 rows	Split it into smaller files
Strange characters in names	The file is not saved as UTF-8	In Excel, save as CSV UTF-8

A wrong column is hard to undo across hundreds of vendors, so check the first row preview before you import.

Common questions

Why can’t I find a vendor on a requisition?

Only approved vendors appear. Check its status on the Vendors tab.

Why did my new column not import?

Either it was unticked, or you do not have permission to add a custom field. Ask an admin to run the import.

Why are the account numbers one or two digits short?

Excel removed the leading zeros. Format the column as Text, retype the numbers, save and import again with Update vendors that already exist ticked.

Does importing update a vendor’s approval?

A non-admin’s new vendors wait for approval, and so do changes they import to an approved vendor’s payment details. The approvers get one notification for the whole import.

Can I undo an import?

Not in one step. Delete the vendors you do not want, or correct the file and import again with Update vendors that already exist ticked.

Can I rename or delete a custom field?

Not on screen yet. Contact support if you need one changed.

Why did my update send a vendor for approval?

You changed its payment details and you are not an admin. An admin or approver needs to confirm the change.

Can vendors upload their own documents?

Not yet. Someone at your firm adds them.

Related guides

• From requisition to retirement: the full guide
• Requisitions: request and approve payments
• Approvals: review and sign off
• Permission policies: control who can do what