# Introduction - Vendors

A vendor is anyone you buy from.

**Video coming soon:** Setting up a vendor, and what every later document inherits from it.

The record holds their currency, your payment terms with them, their tax treatment and the addresses goods arrive from. Every bill, purchase order and payment inherits those settings, so a vendor set up properly rarely needs correcting afterwards.

![The Vendors screen. A table lists nineteen vendors with columns for Name, Company, Email, Work Phone, Status, Payables (BCY) and Unused Credits (BCY). Every row shows a green Active status; Payables carries a balance on the vendors that are owed money and Unused Credits reads 0.00 throughout.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/vendors/vendor-list.png)

*Payables is what you owe today. Unused Credits is value the vendor still owes back to you.*

## What the record decides

A vendor is the purchase-side mirror of a customer, and the same four fields do the work. Three of them change what every future document calculates; the fourth just saves your team a decision every time.

| Field | Effect on every future bill |
| --- | --- |
| Currency | Fixed once transactions exist. Bills can only be raised in this currency. |
| Payment terms | Calculates the due date, which drives your payables ageing. |
| Tax treatment | Decides whether purchase tax is recoverable on their bills. |
| Default expense account | Pre-fills the account on bills and expenses, saving a choice each time. |

> **Tip:**
>
> **Set a default expense account**
>
> For a vendor you use repeatedly for one thing, such as a landlord or a software subscription, the default account means their bills code themselves correctly without anyone thinking about it.

## The vendor detail page

Open a vendor and the transactions tab shows every purchase order, bill, payment and credit against them with a running balance. Before paying anyone, this is the screen that tells you whether an unused vendor credit should come off first.

- **Open bills** are what you owe now.
- **Purchase orders** are commitments, not yet liabilities.
- **Vendor credits** reduce the next payment rather than arriving as cash.
- **Prepayments** are money already sent that has not been matched to a bill.

## Active and inactive

Inactive vendors disappear from pickers but keep every historical transaction. Use it for vendors you have stopped buying from, so your team cannot accidentally raise a new order against a supplier who no longer exists.