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Manage Vendors

A vendor (or supplier) is any person or business you pay money to. Vendors help you:

  • Track who you're spending money with
  • Analyse spending per supplier
  • Store contact information for payment or queries
  • Generate reports grouped by vendor

Vendor examples:

  • Amazon (office supplies)
  • British Airways (travel)
  • Microsoft (software subscriptions)
  • John Smith Consulting (professional services)
  • Thames Water (utilities)

How vendors work in BillKit:

  • Vendors belong to a specific business
  • Every expense must have a vendor assigned
  • AI automatically matches vendors when processing invoices
  • You can store comprehensive contact details for each vendor
  • Filter and search expenses by vendor

Creating a Vendor

  1. Ensure a business is selected (check the business name in the sidebar)
  2. Click "Vendors" in the sidebar (under References section)
  3. Click the "+" button in the toolbar at the top right
  4. A form modal slides down with these fields:
    • Name (required) - Vendor name (e.g. "Amazon", "British Airways")
    • Email (optional) - Contact email address
    • Phone (optional) - Contact phone number
    • Address (optional) - Full postal address
    • Tax ID (optional) - VAT number, tax ID, or company registration number
    • Website (optional) - Vendor website URL (must start with http:// or https://)
  5. Fill in the required name field and any optional fields you have
  6. Click "Add Vendor"

The vendor is created and immediately available for expenses.

Form validation:

  • Name: Required, unique within business (case-insensitive), max 255 characters
  • Email: Must be valid format if provided (e.g. contact@example.com)
  • Website: Must be valid URL with http:// or https:// if provided
  • All other fields: Free text, trimmed of leading/trailing spaces

Viewing Vendors

The Vendors screen shows a table of all vendors for the currently selected business.

Table columns:

  • Name - Vendor name with a coloured indicator (teal circle = default vendor)
  • Email - Contact email (click to copy to clipboard)
  • Phone - Contact phone number
  • Address - Postal address
  • Website - Vendor website (click to open in browser)
  • Tax ID - VAT number, tax ID, or company registration number
  • Expenses - Total number of expenses from this vendor
  • Updated - When the vendor was last modified

Columns showing optional fields display "Not set" when the field is empty.

Interactive elements:

  • Email column: Click an email address to copy it to your clipboard
  • Website column: Click a website URL to open it in your default browser

Sorting:

Click any column header to sort by that column. Click again to reverse the sort order.

Pagination:

The table shows 100 vendors at a time. If you have more, a "Load More" button appears at the bottom.

Editing a Vendor

You can update any vendor information at any time.

To edit a vendor:

  1. Click "Vendors" in the sidebar
  2. Right-click the vendor you want to edit
  3. Choose "Edit Vendor" from the context menu
  4. The edit form sheet slides down showing all current information
  5. Change any fields you want to update
  6. Click "Save Changes"

The vendor is updated. All expenses using this vendor automatically show the new information.

Setting the Default

Each business has a default vendor. This default is used when:

  • Creating a new manual expense (pre-selected in the form)
  • AI processing fails to match a vendor

To set a vendor as default:

  1. Click "Vendors" in the sidebar
  2. Right-click the vendor you want to make default
  3. Choose "Set as Default" from the context menu

The vendor becomes the default. Only one vendor can be default at a time. Setting a new default automatically removes it from the previous one.

Visual indicator: The default vendor shows a circle (using the app Accent colour) in the Name column. Non-default vendors show a grey circle.

Tip: Many users leave "Unknown Vendor" as the default vendor, since expenses should ideally have the actual vendor assigned, not a placeholder. However, if most of your expenses come from one supplier, you might set that as the default.

Deleting a Vendor

Deleting a vendor requires careful consideration because expenses must always have a vendor assigned.

Rules for deletion:

  • You cannot delete the default vendor. First set a different vendor as default, then delete
  • If the vendor has expenses, you must reassign those expenses to another vendor
  • Vendors with no expenses can be deleted immediately

To delete a vendor with no expenses:

  1. Click "Vendors" in the sidebar
  2. Right-click the vendor you want to delete
  3. Choose "Delete Vendor" from the context menu
  4. A confirmation dialog appears
  5. Review the vendor name carefully
  6. Click "Delete"

The vendor is permanently deleted.

To delete a vendor with expenses:

  1. Click "Vendors" in the sidebar
  2. Right-click the vendor you want to delete
  3. Choose "Delete Vendor" from the context menu
  4. A dialog appears showing how many expenses will be affected (e.g. "23 expenses")
  5. A dropdown appears listing all other vendors in this business
  6. Select the vendor to reassign expenses to
  7. Click "Reassign & Delete"

BillKit:

  • Moves all expenses from the deleted vendor to the selected vendor
  • Updates the "updated" timestamp on all affected expenses
  • Permanently deletes the vendor
  • Clears any persisted filters that referenced this vendor

Warning: Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone. If you're unsure, consider editing the vendor name instead (e.g. "Archive: Old Vendor Name").

Bulk deleting (selected vendors)

  1. Click "Vendors" in the sidebar
  2. Select the rows for each vendor to delete (click and drag or hold Shift and select)
  3. A bulk action toolbar appears at the top
  4. Click the "Delete selected" button
  5. Confirm your decision
  6. The selected vendors are deleted and table is reloaded.

Searching and Filtering

Click the search icon (magnifying glass) in the top right toolbar to reveal a search field. Type a vendor name to filter the list. Search is case-insensitive and matches partial names.

Filters:

Click the filter icon (funnel with three lines) in the top right toolbar. A filter panel slides in from the right with these options:

  • Has Email - Show only vendors with an email address, or only those without
  • Has Phone - Show only vendors with a phone number, or only those without
  • Has Address - Show only vendors with an address, or only those without
  • Has Website - Show only vendors with a website URL, or only those without
  • Has Tax ID - Show only vendors with a tax ID, or only those without
  • Has Expenses - Show only vendors with at least one expense, or only those with zero expenses

Set your criteria and the table updates automatically. Click outside the panel or press the X to dismiss it.

Use case example:

Filter for "Has Email: No" to find vendors missing contact information that you need to follow up on.

Remembering filters:

BillKit saves your filter settings when you leave the Vendors screen. When you return, your filters are restored exactly as you left them.

Vendor Intelligence

When BillKit processes an invoice using AI, it attempts to match the extracted vendor name against your existing vendors.

How vendor matching works:

  1. Exact match - If the AI extracts "Amazon" and you have a vendor called "Amazon", it matches
  2. Fuzzy match - If the AI extracts "Amazon UK Ltd" and you have "Amazon", it matches
  3. No match - If no match is found, BillKit stores extracted information for you to create a new vendor with

Improving AI matching:

The more invoices you process from a vendor, the better BillKit gets at recognising them.

  • Ensure vendor names are standardised (use official company names)
  • Add comprehensive vendor information (address, tax ID, website) to help matching

Exporting Vendors

You can export your vendor list to CSV format for use in spreadsheets or accounting software.

Bulk export (selected vendors):

  1. Click "Vendors" in the sidebar
  2. Select the rows for each vendor to export (click and drag or hold Shift and select)
  3. A bulk action toolbar appears at the top
  4. Click the "Export selected" button
  5. Choose a save location
  6. The CSV file is created

What's exported:

  • Vendor name
  • Email
  • Phone
  • Address
  • Tax ID
  • Website
  • Expense count
  • Created date
  • Updated date

You can also export all vendors for a business from the Export Data screen.

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