Vendors and Tax IDs

How do you handle vendors with the same tax ID, but different vendor names? Does Infor have a best-practice for this related to CloudSuite?

Example scenario: Let's say Umbrella Inc. has two divisions -- Widgets Co. and Gizmos Co. All of these share the same tax ID but on your POs you want to display either Widgets Co. or Gizmos Co. as appropriate.

On one hand, my brain wants to think one vendor number to one tax ID (Umbrella Inc.), then create Purchase From / Remit To accounts for Widgets Co. and Gizmos Co. In this setup, though, if someone were manually creating a PO, the buyer would have to know that Widgets and Gizmos were available Purchase Froms on the main vendor number, searching for Umbrella, and I think the PO would still display Umbrella.

Alternatively, Widgets and Gizmos could be set up as separate vendor numbers and thus searchable by their names. Are these considered duplicate vendors, though? The system neither prevents nor alerts us from having multiple vendor numbers with the same tax ID; however, we would want to avoid situations where one person sets up Widgets Co. and another sets up Widgets Company.

Curious to learn if others have had issues with this and how you've managed these cases. Thanks!

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unknown

Our system DOES notify us when we have multiple vendor numbers with the same tax ID. That may have been something that we set up during implementation. However, we go by the philosophy of one vendor number to one tax ID, so it is helpful. If there are two dba's or divisions, we put both in the search line so that the vendor will pull no matter which one you enter. We use the "location" option to identify which one we are purchasing from, however the PO still displays the primary name. Curious to see how others do it.

ryan-schumacher

Thanks for sharing, Angela!

Jeremy Townsend

Our policy is one vendor record per Tax ID. No exceptions. Then, what is registered with the IRS (and what is on the required W9) as their legal name is what goes in the legal name. If they have a need to see a specific name on a PO or check, those get set up as locations. Same as if they have different addresses/places of business.

So for your example:

Vendor record is for Umbrella Inc
One location for Widgets Co.
Another location for Gizmos Co.

ryan-schumacher

Thanks, Jeremy. Do you include the locations in the vendor search name, and do you have a customized purchase order template that displays the specific Location Name instead of the Vendor Name?

By default, I think Umbrella Inc. is going to display on all the POs regardless of a location being selected.

ben-auer

Hey Ryan,

We use purchase froms to differentiate between different divisions of the same vendor with the same tax ID. A couple notable ones are Abbott and Stryker. We aligned our purchase froms with the divisions and corresponding EDI connections. They mainly get broken apart by PO issue method. We then map the items and contracts to the corresponding purchase froms. It can definitely get tricky at times when some vendors are not super clear on what division items line up with when loading them.

Some vendors likes Medtronic allow their items to be mixed and then they split them out when they receive the PO, in that case we only use one purchase from.

Thanks,

Ben

Jeremy Townsend

Yes, we configured the PO template to display the location name. As far as the "vendor search name" I'm not sure really what you're asking. They first have to select the vendor, then they will search for the location if needed.

ryan-schumacher

That makes sense your PO template is configured then to display the location name, which is something I think we'd also need to do.

Regarding the Vendor Search Name, I was referring to the field on the Vendor business class so that someone searching for a location by name would still find the main vendor number and name returned in a search result. Otherwise, I presume staff just have to know this main vendor information or search by location differently.

ryan-schumacher

Thanks, Ben! We do our best to follow the same type of pattern you describe, too. Stryker is a good example of a setup we have that is functionally working, but I'm not sure it's truly set up "properly/efficiently." If you ever feel like having a meeting to compare notes some time, send me an email. ryan.schumacher@bellin.org

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