Who this is for. AP Helpdesk Analysts and Managers, and ProcureToPay Managers and Agents. The record tabs are shared by both functions. See the Roles and Access.
The Vendors tab is the vendor master as Auditoria sees it, read from your system of record. Every vendor available to the agent is here, under All, Enrolled and Unenrolled scopes that each carry a live count.
Enrolled is the column that matters most. It decides whether the agent processes that vendor’s mail at all. An unenrolled vendor receives limited replies regardless of the rest of the configuration.
The list is read-only apart from enrollment, tags and relaxed matching domains. Vendor master data itself is corrected in your system of record and syncs from there. What you see is also bounded by your data scope.
Figure 1. The Vendors tab. The scope tabs and their counts sit above the list.
Open the Vendors tab
In the navigation rail, point to SmartVendor, then select SmartVendor from the menu that opens.
Select Vendors.
Select All, Enrolled or Unenrolled to scope the list.
Vendor list fields
A few of these are not guessable from the name. Vendor ID is assigned automatically rather than typed, and Enrolled refers specifically to the skills the agent runs, not to a status in your ERP.
Table 1. Columns in the vendor list
Column |
What it holds |
|---|---|
Vendor Name |
The vendor as named in your system of record. This is the only column on the tab that can be sorted. |
Vendor ID |
The supplier reference, assigned automatically. |
Enrolled |
One icon for each skill running on this source: AP Helpdesk and AP Invoices. A solid icon means the vendor is enrolled in that skill and an outlined one means it is not. Hover an icon to see which skill it is. |
Entity |
The legal entity or entities the vendor trades with. |
Category |
The vendor category used by processing rules and reply templates. |
Inquiries |
How much mail this vendor has sent to the helpdesk. |
Relaxed Matching Domains |
Allow-listed company-controlled email domains used for matching. Private domains only. |
Tags |
Tags applied to the record. |
Supplier Group |
The supplier grouping from your system of record. |
Default Payment Type |
How this vendor is normally paid. |
Contacts |
Key contacts at the vendor, truncated where there are several. |
Primary email address for vendor communication. |
|
Business Name |
Registered business name, which may differ from Vendor Name. |
Status |
Active or Inactive in your organization. |
Address |
Primary business or billing address. |
Tax ID |
The vendor’s tax identification number, where provided. |
Tax ID Type |
Type of tax identifier, for example EIN, SSN or VAT. |
Ten are shown by default and the rest are added from Edit Columns. How many the chooser offers depends on the connected system of record, so your own list can differ from the table below.
Two more appear conditionally. Write to SoR appears when AP Invoices writes in hybrid mode, and Risk Level, Risk Status and Validations appear when AP Supplier Risk is active. Supplier Group and Default Payment Type come from your system of record rather than from SmartVendor.
Sort and page through the list
The list opens sorted by Vendor Name, A to Z. Select the heading to reverse it.
Vendor Name is the only column here that can be sorted. Reach every other column with Filter Records instead. Inquiries is the one most often wanted in order: most of a large master sits at zero, so filter it with greater than to surface the handful of vendors that actually correspond.
The footer reports the range and the total, for example 1-20 of 3,217, with the page number beside it. Rows per page offers 10, 20, 50 and 100. The scope you pick above the list changes the total the footer counts.
Enrollment scopes and what they change
Three scope tabs sit above the grid, each with a live count.
Table 2. Vendor scope tabs
Tab |
Shows |
|---|---|
All |
Every vendor record synced from the system of record. |
Enrolled |
Vendors the Agent Co-worker will answer mail for. |
Unenrolled |
Vendors it will not, even though their records are present. |
The counts are the useful part. On a typical tenant the enrolled figure is a small fraction of the total, a few dozen against several thousand. Enrollment is opt-in, so that shape is common.
Where a vendor’s mail went unanswered, open Unenrolled and search there first. It answers in one step the question that otherwise takes a trip through the mailbox and the audit log.
Table 3. What enrollment changes
State |
What the agent does with their email |
|---|---|
Enrolled |
Full processing: intent detection, extracted values, generated drafts, attachments, labels, notes, and any auto-assignment rules. |
Unenrolled |
A basic Review Task at most, and only if the sender is known. No intent detection and no draft. A person handles the response. |
A vendor absent from the directory entirely is treated as an Unknown sender, and supplier record details are never surfaced to Unknown senders.
Enrollment changes apply to future email. Enrolling a vendor does not reprocess mail already received.
Toolbar actions
A search box and up to seven controls sit on the toolbar. Each one appears only where your role and your tenant’s configuration allow it. This is the fullest toolbar in the console: the first three act on the vendors you tick rather than only changing what is displayed.
Table 4. The Vendors toolbar
Control |
What it does |
|---|---|
Search |
Free-text search across the list. |
Enroll or unenroll |
Enrolls or unenrolls the vendors you tick, in bulk. |
Relaxed Matching Domains |
Sets the domains accepted for the selected vendors when no contact address matches. |
Tag |
Applies tags to the vendors you tick. |
Filter Records |
Adds a filter row beneath the column headers. |
Edit Columns |
Opens the column chooser. |
Export Vendors |
Queues the list as it is currently filtered and columned. The file arrives under Downloads in the Notification Center. |
Where the selected source also runs AP Invoice processing, a Summary Line control joins them and turns the invoice summary line on or off for the selected vendors.
Figure 2. The toolbar. The scope tabs, the selection counter and the toolbar controls.
1. Search vendors
Type into the search box to narrow the list as you type. Clearing the box returns the full list for the scope you are in.
2. Select vendors for a bulk action
Tick the box at the start of each row you want, or the box in the column header to take the whole page. A N selected counter appears beside the record count. Then choose the action from the toolbar.
Selecting the header box takes the current page, not the whole filtered set. Where a Select all records option is offered it extends the selection beyond the page, but Relaxed Matching Domains will not run against that kind of selection. For relaxed matching, tick rows explicitly.
3. Enroll or unenroll vendors
Enrollment is a per-vendor setting. Use this procedure to change it for several vendors at once.
Tick the vendors you want.
Select Enroll or unenroll. The panel opens on Select SmartFlow Skill to Enroll or unenroll, listing the skills configured for the source.
Tick a skill to enroll the selected vendors in it, or untick it to unenroll them. Leave a skill in its mixed state to leave it alone.
Select Apply. Cancel discards the change.
The mixed state matters. A skill shown neither ticked nor cleared means the selection contains vendors in both states, and leaving it that way preserves each vendor’s current setting. Ticking or clearing it applies the same state to all of them.
Figure 3. The bulk enrollment panel, scoped to the skills the source runs.
4. Relaxed Matching Domains
A relaxed domain lets the agent match a sender to this vendor when no contact address matches exactly. Select the control with vendors ticked and the panel lists the domains already accepted for them, with Add New Domain and Manage Domains.
Accept private domains only. A public or consumer domain would classify every holder of such an address as belonging to that vendor.
This control is not an analyst action. Enrollment and tag management are available to an analyst, but relaxed matching needs read rights to see and update rights to change, which makes it a manager, specialist or Super Admin action. An analyst does not see it on the toolbar.
Figure 4. The Relaxed Matching Domains panel.
5. Tag vendors
Tags group vendors for search, reporting and workflow. They are one of the few things on this tab you change rather than read.
Tick the vendors you want.
Select Tag. The Tag as panel opens.
Search for an existing tag, or select Add New Tag to create one. Where no tags exist yet the panel reads No tags found. Please create one.
Apply the tag to the selected vendors.
Manage Tags in the same panel edits and removes existing tags.
Tags is also a filterable column, so keep the names consistent across the team. A tag nobody else spells the same way is a tag nobody else can filter on.
6. Filter vendor records
Filter Records puts a filter row under the column headers. Each column offers the operators its data type allows.
Text columns, Vendor Name and Vendor ID, offer contains with a text box.
List columns, Entity, Category, Tags, Supplier Group and Default Payment Type, offer in with a picker showing the values present in the data.
Count columns, Inquiries, offer less than, equals and greater than, compared numerically.
Filters combine across columns with AND, and they apply to exports. Clear them from Clear All Filters.
7. Customize table columns
Edit Columns opens the column chooser, with a search box to find a column by name.
Three are locked and always shown, marked with a padlock: Vendor Name, Vendor ID and Enrolled.
The rest can be switched on and off. Entity, Category, Inquiries, Relaxed Matching Domains and Tags are on by default, so the list opens at eight columns. Contacts, Email, Tax ID Type, Business Name, Status, Address and Tax ID are off.
How many columns you see depends on your connector. The chooser is built from the vendor fields your system of record exposes, so the list is not the same length on every tenant. Two Workday connections checked side by side offered fifteen and sixteen columns, the second adding Supplier Connections (Remit to Connections). Read your own chooser rather than counting on a fixed number.
Select Apply to commit the change, or Restore Default to put the original set back.
Figure 5. The column chooser. The padlocked columns cannot be switched off.
8. Export vendors
Export Vendors downloads the list exactly as you are looking at it. The search text, the sort order, every active filter and the columns you have chosen all carry into the file. The button is unavailable while the list is empty, and it appears only where your role carries export rights.
The vendor record
The vendor record gathers master data, related finance records and the whole correspondence history in one page. It is the natural starting point for any question that begins with a vendor’s name.
The breadcrumb reads Vendor > and the vendor name. Beside it sit the Enrollment control and Save, then a row of quick links.
Quick navigation links
Each link opens another tab already filtered to this vendor, so you land on that vendor’s rows rather than the whole list. Which links appear depends on your source system and the functions the agent runs.
Table 5. Quick links on a vendor record
Link |
Opens |
Present when |
|---|---|---|
Bills |
The Bills tab, filtered to this vendor. |
Always. |
Purchase Orders |
The Purchase Orders tab, filtered to this vendor. |
Every source except Intacct. |
Payments |
The Payments tab, filtered to this vendor. |
The app runs AP Helpdesk, not AP Invoices alone. |
Vendor Emails |
The mailbox, filtered to this vendor, so the correspondence and the data sit side by side. |
Email communication is enabled for the tenant, and the app runs AP Helpdesk rather than AP Invoices alone. |
A vendor with no bills, orders or payments still shows the links. They open an empty list, which is itself the answer to “have you received anything from us?”
Figure 6. A vendor record, with its related-record links and agent notes.
Standard Fields
The header of the record, held in the Vendors Details panel.
Table 6. Standard Fields on a vendor record
Field |
What it holds |
|---|---|
Vendor Name |
The vendor as named in your system of record. |
ID |
The supplier reference, assigned automatically. |
Category |
The vendor category used by processing rules and reply templates. |
Status |
Active or Inactive in your organization. |
Entity |
The legal entity or entities the vendor trades with. |
The primary address for vendor communication. |
|
Address |
The primary business or billing address. |
Contacts |
Every address the agent will match mail from. The pencil beside it opens them for editing. |
Business Name |
The registered business name, which may differ from Vendor Name. |
Tax ID |
The vendor’s tax identification number, where provided. |
Tax ID Type |
The type of identifier, for example EIN, SSN or VAT. |
Tags |
Tags applied to the record. |
Contacts is the field that decides whether the agent recognizes this vendor’s mail. A vendor with no contact address can only be matched by domain, and only if a relaxed domain rule covers them.
Extended Fields
Tenant-specific values your system of record supplies: Supplier Group and Default Payment Type.
Bill Classification Defaults
A panel of its own, holding the accounting values the agent applies to this vendor’s bills automatically, such as Spend Category and Cost Center. Which fields the panel offers follows the connected system of record: Workday shows Spend Category and Cost Center, NetSuite and Coupa an account, and Sage Intacct location, account, tax detail and department. A field with no value set reads --.
These defaults are held in Auditoria, not synced from your system of record. Auditoria stores them against the vendor record itself, so they are not read from Workday or from any other ERP and correcting the vendor master there will not change them. They are the one thing on this tab you set here rather than upstream.
They are applied while a bill is prepared, so a value taken from a matched purchase order or supplier contract, a business rule, or a manual edit can each replace them. Where a vendor’s invoices code consistently to the wrong account, this panel is the first place to look.
Set the defaults
Open the vendor record.
In Bill Classification Defaults, select the pencil at the top right of the panel.
Set the values you want. Cancel discards the change.
Select Save.
The change applies to bills processed from that point on, and is recorded against the vendor as a default update. Editing is available on the AP Invoices and SmartVendor consoles.
Notes
The Notes panel beneath the detail holds what the agent recorded and what people added, in one list. On a vendor record the agent notes are often the fastest explanation of why a message was handled the way it was.
The panel works the same way on every record tab. For the filters, the search box, adding a note and the permission it needs, see Bills.
Use the record to answer a question
Start from the vendor’s question rather than the page layout. Each common question maps to one part of the record.
Table 7. Where to go from the vendor record
Question |
Follow |
|---|---|
“Have you received our invoice?” |
Bills |
“When were we paid?” |
Payments |
“What did we tell them last time?” |
Vendor Emails |
“Why is their mail not being answered?” |
Contacts and the Enrollment control |
The related-record links stay within the selected Agent Co-worker, so what they reach is what that agent can reach. Vendor Emails opens the mailbox filtered to this record, which puts the correspondence and the data side by side.
Enroll a single vendor
Open the Vendors tab and select the vendor.
In the Enrollment area of the header, switch AP Helpdesk on or off. The area shows one switch per SmartVendor skill configured for the source that you may change: AP Helpdesk and AP Invoices. You may see only one of them.
Select Save.
Save stays unavailable until you change a switch. A grayed-out Save means the vendor is already in the state you are setting.
Figure 7. The Enrollment control and the quick links, at the top of a vendor record.
Why a vendor may be handled cautiously
Work down this order when a reply was thinner than expected.
Is the vendor in the list at all? If not, their email is handled as an Unknown sender.
Are they enrolled? Unenrolled means no intent detection and no draft.
Is the sender’s address on the vendor record? Matching resolves against vendor contacts.
Enrollment you can change from the vendor record. Sender contacts are added from the vendor record, or from a message through Helpdesk Contact Management.
Contacts decide the rest. A vendor with at least one contact address is matched exactly, and the agent acts within the rules for their sender type. A vendor with no contact can only be matched by a relaxed domain rule, if one covers them. A contact address that appears on more than one vendor record is ambiguous, and the agent will not act on it at all.
When mail is still not answered
Enrollment is necessary but not sufficient. A vendor can be enrolled and still go unanswered if the record has no contact address, or if the address they wrote from is not on the record. Check SOR Insights for contact coverage before assuming enrollment is the problem.
Manage contacts from the vendor record
The Contacts row on a vendor record carries two icons. Add Helpdesk Contacts opens Add Helpdesk Contact to followed by the vendor name; Manage Helpdesk Contacts opens Helpdesk Contact Management for the addresses already on the record. Enter one or more addresses, which are held as chips until you commit them, and remove an existing address from its row in the table.
Contacts added here are the addresses the agent matches inbound mail against, so a vendor with no contact can only be matched by a relaxed domain rule.
Manage the relaxed matching domains
Manage Domains in the Relaxed Matching popover opens Domain Management. It lists the domains already allow-listed, with a search box and Add New Domain.
Each row carries a delete control. Removing a domain asks you to confirm, naming the domain, and withdraws relaxed matching from every address on it.
Vendor aliases
The Alias row on a vendor record carries a pencil that opens a dialog headed Alias. It lists the aliases already held for the vendor and offers Create a new Alias. Each row can be removed, and removing one asks you to confirm first.
An alias is another name the same vendor is known by, so mail and documents carrying it resolve to this record.