Company Specific Vendor Information Card Workspace
Use this workspace to enter and maintain information about company-specific vendors; this is accounting information that is used to process purchases and vendor invoices.
You identify a company-specific vendor by a combination of vendor number (set up in the Vendor Information Card workspace) and company number. Certain information about the vendor is unique to the vendor/company combination.
A company-specific vendor is a split-up of a vendor number, meaning that you can make certain information about this vendor dependent on which company in Maconomy is responsible for the vendor in question. This means that there can be a company-specific vendor for each combination of vendor number and settling company number, and you can thus change certain information for each company-specific vendor on the associated information card, so that, for example, one payment mode is used in connection with purchase from company A at vendor X, whereas another payment mode is used in connection with purchase from company B at the same vendor. In this way, all companies can use a common vendor number for an arbitrary number of company-specific vendors, only each of these company-specific vendors is assigned to its own specific settling company. Maconomy thus does not distinguish company-specific vendors by their vendor numbers, but by the combination of vendor number and settling company.
This is especially useful if vendors that you create using the Vendor Information Card can be thought of as "enterprise vendors" that you can use as a kind of template for company-specific vendors that you create in the associated settling companies. You can use a vendor as a template if no settling company has been specified for "the enterprise vendor" in the Vendor Information Card workspace. However, although a settling company has been specified on the "enterprise vendor," you can still use this vendor as a template for creating company-specific vendors; however, the settling company is inherited from the "enterprise vendor," insofar as you do not specify a settling company for each company-specific vendor.
This workspace is thus especially relevant for users who, for example, are associated with a specific settling company, and are responsible for the day-to-day administration of the company's own vendors, called "company-specific vendors" in Maconomy.
The following is an example of the use of this workspace:
Two settling companies want the information from an "enterprise vendor's" information card, but also need to enter various data in certain data fields, for example, Attn., Phone, or Delivery Terms. By creating company-specific vendors that are linked to an existing vendor (the "enterprise vendor"), the two settling companies can access a large amount of information inherited from the existing vendor; however, they can only change the data fields that they need to change. The company-specific vendors thus have the same vendor number as the "enterprise vendor," but the settling company number and the contents of certain fields, such as Attn. and Phone, are different.
In addition, the setup of linking rules in the Linking Rules workspace in the Set-Up module is decisive for defining what information is inherited from vendors to company-specific vendors and also for defining what information users can change in this workspace. For example, if you create a linking rule from the relation Customer to the relation CompanyCreditor that specifies that all vendor information, except for a few fields such as Attn. and Phone, should be inherited by company-specific vendors with the standard linking method Full, Maconomy copies the relevant information to the company-specific vendor's information cards using this linking rule. The selected linking rule therefore determines which fields are changeable on the company-specific vendor's information card. Whether or not you can specify, change, or only view a value in each field depends on the setup of the linking rule that you assigned to the vendor, if any. For more information about linking rules, see the description of the Linking Rules workspace in the Set-Up module.
The creation of company-specific vendors in this workspace, however, depends on whether you select the Centralized vendor creation only system parameter in the Set-Up module. If you select this system parameter, you can only create company-specific vendors, if you have already created them as vendors in the Vendor Information Card workspace. If you do not select this parameter, there are no restrictions on the creation of company-specific vendors in this workspace. The creation of a company-specific vendor automatically results in the creation of a vendor with the same information as the company-specific vendor, if this vendor does not already exist.
Additionally, if you select the Aut. company-specific vendor creation system parameter Maconomy automatically creates company-specific vendors when you try to enter information about such non-existing company-specific vendors. If you do not select this parameter and someone makes an entry on a non-existing company-specific vendor, Maconomy displays an error message. You must then create the company-specific vendor manually in the Company Specific Vendor Information Card workspace before you try to enter any more information.
You maintain financial information about company-specific-vendors in the Company Specific Payment Control workspaces. In some cases, however, Maconomy copies this information from the Vendor Information Card and Payment Control workspaces.
For auditing purposes, it is recommended that you print and file the Company Specific Vendor Information Card each time that you change information here or in the Payment Control workspace. To print the Company Specific Vendor Information Card, use the Print this function in the File menu.