Vendor records
What belongs on a vendor record, why tax identity matters before the first payment, and how the vendor portal collects it without email attachments.
How-toFor Bookkeepers, Business owners, Firm staff
Why the vendor record matters
A vendor record is not just a name on a bill. It is where payment instructions, tax identity, and default coding live — and each of those causes a specific kind of pain when it is missing at the wrong moment.
| Field | What it prevents |
|---|---|
| Legal name and tax ID | A January scramble to collect W-9s before 1099 filing. |
| 1099 classification | Missing a reportable vendor entirely, which is a penalty item. |
| Remittance details | Payments sent to a stale address or closed account. |
| Default expense account | Inconsistent coding across whoever entered the bill that day. |
| Payment terms | Aging reports that misstate what is actually overdue. |
The vendor portal
Rather than emailing a W-9 form and hoping it comes back, send the vendor a secure onboarding link. They enter their own legal name, tax ID, address, and remittance details, and the record is populated directly.
Why this is better than email:
- Tax identification numbers never sit in an inbox or a shared drive.
- The vendor types their own details, so transcription errors disappear.
- The submission is timestamped, which is what you want if a filing is ever questioned.
- You can see who has completed onboarding and who has not, without searching mail.
Keeping the list clean
- Merge duplicates as you find them. Two records for one vendor split their history and can split a 1099.
- Archive vendors you no longer use rather than deleting them — history stays attached.
- Review vendors with no tax identity before year end, while there is still time to collect it.
- Set a default expense account for anyone you buy from routinely; it makes automated coding materially better.
Common questions
Not from every vendor, but collecting one from everyone is far simpler than deciding case by case and being wrong. Corporations are generally exempt from 1099-NEC reporting, but there are exceptions — legal services being the notable one — and you cannot apply the exemption without knowing the entity type, which is what the W-9 tells you.
See also1099 and W-9 compliance
Yes, and they are separate records. If you both buy from and sell to the same party, keep the balances gross rather than netting them, unless you have a contractual right of offset — netting hides both exposures.
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