The next step is to set up vendor master files using the Vendor File Maintenance form (Figure 18) found under File Maintenance Vendor File.

You must choose a Vendor Number for each vendor (as you can see in Figure 18, this "number" can be alphabetical instead of numerical, or a combination of alpha and numeric characters). You are probably already using some sort of numbering scheme in the system from which you are migrating, and you can use the numbers from that system if you like. Enter the vendor’s name in the first text field of the Billing Address section. Note that, when you tab out of this field, it automatically populates the same field in the Pickup Address section with the same information. This is designed to save you some typing if the Pickup Address is the same as the Billing Address, and you can always over-write the information in the Pickup Address section.

Next to the Vendor Number field you see a button labeled Comments and a drop-down selection field. We will discuss the Comments button below. The drop-down selection field allows you to flag the vendor as either Active or Inactive. Of course, you will usually create a vendor with an Active status, but when you are no longer going to use a vendor you can set the vendor's status to Inactive to remove the vendor from any reports, F3 look-ups, etc., without deleting the vendor and the history associated with it.

Below the Billing Address section there is a large textbox that allows you to insert any relevant comments concerning the vendor (i.e., additional, miscellaneous information that is not captured anywhere else on the form that may be important in your interactions with the vendor). These comments will print on the Vendor Re-Order Report, an internal document we will look at in Section III H.

Below the Comments text field is a section dispaying three tabs. The first of these tabs is labeled A/P Information (Figure 19), and it is here you will enter contact information for the vendor, the vendor's Federal ID Number, and the Account # the vendor has assigned to your business. Additionally, this tab has a checkbox labeled 1099 Required which allows you to identify whether this vendor falls within the category of vendors which may require 1099s at the end of the year, and tells the system to check this vendor when preparing the 1099 Report and when printing 1099s (to define which payments to this vendor must be reported on a 1099, we specified which expense G/Ls should be considered for 1099 reporting in Section II C). The last field on this tab allows you to specify the credit terms for this vendor. Clicking once in the Terms field with your mouse will bring up the Modify Terms input form shown in Figure 20. The Modify Terms input form allows you to enter Discount Percent, Discount Days, and Net Due Days in three separate fields. Once you complete the three fields and click OK, the Terms field will display a description of the terms for this vendor.

The second tab is the Order Information tab (Figure 21). On this tab you will enter contact information for ordering from the vendor, and also specify whether a dock appointment is required and whether the vendor is the member of a buying group.

The third tab is the Broker Information tab (Figure 22), and it is here you can assign the vendor to one of the brokers we set up in Section II E. You can also specify a contact and whether orders should be placed through the broker. Also note that the Broker Number field has a yellow background color, which means we can hit the F3 SEARCH KEY to pull up a list of brokers from which we can select.

Below the tabbed section is a section labeled Order Days. Here you can flag regularly scheduled order days by clicking on the checkbox next to the day of the week.

To the right, you can see two more sections labeled Order Minimums and G/L Codes. The Order Minimums section is where you specify any minimum order constraints defined in terms of Cases, Pounds, or Cost, and you can also specify any required Lead Time. Below the Order Minimums section you can see the G/L Codes section. In this section you see three text fields labeled Expense G/L. You may or may not use these fields, depending on the type of vendor you are setting up. When you purchase a product or service from a vendor, The Application will post the debit in one of two ways. If you are purchasing inventory The Application will most likely post the debit to the Default Inventory G/L you created when you completed and saved the Configuration File Maintenance form back in Section II - Setting Up the Configuration File (unless you override the Default Inventory G/L when you set up that particular inventory item, as you will see below when we look at the Inventory File Maintenance form). The second way The Application might post the debit is to reference the Expense G/L accounts you enter here in the Vendor File Maintenance form. The Application will utilize this second option when services or non-inventory goods are purchased. You always have the option of overriding the default G/L codes chosen by The Application as you will see later when we look at the purchase order and accounts payable processes.

So, if the vendor you are setting up is a utility provider, janitorial service, software vendor, etc., you will want to identify at least one Expense G/L as a default expense account. Later, when someone goes to create an A/P voucher to pay this vendor, the G/L accounts you identify here will appear on the Accounts Payable entry form.

The last field in the G/L Codes section, the A/P G/L field, allows you to over-write the default A/P code created in the Configuration File Maintenance form, if you want payments to this vendor to be coded to a separate A/P account.

Note that the four fields in the G/L Codes section support the F3 key.

At the top right of the Vendor File Maintenance form is a button labeled Re-Order Report. Clicking on this button will generate a Vendor ReOrder Report for the vendor.

Before we leave our discussion of the Vendor File Maintenance form, let's look at the Comments button at the top of the form. Clicking on the Comments button opens the Comments form (Figure 23).

Because no comments have yet been created for this vendor, the Comments form is empty. At the lower right, you will see a button labeled Add Comment. Clicking on this button will open up the Add Comment form (Figure 24), with which you could add the first comment pertaining to this vendor.

If you were to add a comment using the Add Comment form, the comment would then appear on the Comments form as shown in Figure 25.

Double-clicking on the comment displayed on the Comments form opens the View/Modify Comment form (Figure 26) with which you can view, change or update existing comments. Note that the system records the last person to modify the comment and displays that person's name on this form.

After you have added a comment for a vendor, you will notice a slight change on the Vendor File Maintenance Form: The Comments button now displays an asterisk before the "C" indicating that this vendor has at least one comment on file (Figure 27).

Comments added in this way are for internal use and do not appear on any reports. You will see that comments can be added to customers as well as vendors, and that comments can be viewed from various A/P and A/R forms within the system.

When you have completed the Vendor File Maintenance form, click on the Save button to create the vendor master file. Alternately, if you wish to abort the creation of the vendor, you can click the Cancel button anytime before saving. As you can see, you can also Delete a vendor using the Vendor File Maintenance form (once you have saved vendor files, the F3 SEARCH KEY will work in the Vendor Number field so that you can select from the list of vendors when using the Vendor File Maintenance form to modify existing vendor master files).

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