All 22 Vendor Management questions
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Accounts Payable & Receivable › Vendor Management

How do you detect and prevent duplicate vendors in the master file?

Intermediate

Answer

Duplicate vendors (same supplier set up twice with slight name/address variations) cause duplicate payments and fragmented spend. Prevent them with fuzzy-matching checks on name, tax ID, and bank account at creation, periodic cleansing, and standardizing naming conventions. Deactivate duplicates and merge history rather than deleting.
Real-world example A cleansing exercise finds 'ABC Ltd' and 'A.B.C. Limited' share a tax ID; the duplicate is merged, consolidating spend visibility.

Common follow-ups: Why merge rather than delete a duplicate? | How does deduplication improve spend analysis?

Reconciliations Invoice Processing Vendor Management
All 22 Vendor Management questions