Welcome to the Fit Small Business QuickBooks Online training course! In this lesson, we’re going to cover how to set up vendors in QuickBooks Online. We’ll explain how to manually add customers and how to upload vendor data from an Excel or CSV file.

You can follow along on your own QuickBooks Online account. If you don't have one already, click here to sign up for a free 30-day trial and follow along below.

To complete this lesson, you can either watch the video below, read through the step-by-step instructions, or do both. Let’s begin!

Why Is It Important to Set Up Vendors in QuickBooks Online?

If you are paying bills in QuickBooks, then you definitely want to setup your vendors. Setting up your vendors will allow you to do the following:

• Quickly enter vendor bills with information like remit to address and due date automatically pre-populated from the vendor profile.
• Keep track of your expenses by vendor. This will allow you to run reports that will provide insight into which vendors you are spending the most money with and what items you are purchasing from them.

First, we’ll explain how to manually set up vendors in QuickBooks. However, if you have more than 10 vendors to set up in QuickBooks, I recommend that you proceed to the next section of this lesson, How to Set Up Vendors Using an Excel or CSV file.

How to Manually Set Up Vendors in QuickBooks Online

Step 1 – Navigate to the Vendor Center

To set up your vendors in your company file, navigate to the vendor center by clicking on Vendors on the left menu bar right below Customers as indicated below:

Step 2 – Create New Vendor

Click the blue New Vendor button in the upper right hand corner as indicated below.

Step 3 – Enter Vendor Information

Below is a sample vendor that we are setting up for our fictitious company, Paul’s Plumbing.

Below are the fields that you need to complete and an explanation of how that information will be used by QuickBooks:

1. 1. First & Last Name – complete this for individual vendors; this info will appear on all bills and purchase orders that you create.
   2. Company – complete this for your commercial or business vendors; this info will appear on all bills and purchase orders that you create.
   3. Display name as – this field will auto-populate based on the info entered in the Vendor Name field.  This is how your vendor will show up on your Vendor list in QuickBooks.
   4. Print on check as – when you write checks and pay vendor bills, the payee information will come from here. If the payee is different from the vendor name, then you can make the necessary changes here.
   5. Address – this should be the address where you need to mail your payment to the vendor.  (i.e. remit to address).
   6. Notes – Enter any additional information here that you would like to keep track of for your vendors (e.g. additional contact names or phone numbers). This information is for internal purposes and will not be visible to your vendors.
   7. Email – the email address that is entered here will be used to send vendors purchase orders via email.
   8. Phone/Mobile/Fax – enter the contact telephone numbers provided by your vendors.
   9. Website – Enter your supplier’s website address for quick reference.
   10. Payment Terms – In the How to Setup Expenses lesson, we set up default payment terms (i.e. Net 30) for all vendors. If you want to change the default payment terms for any vendor, you can do so here in the vendor profile.  
   11. Tax ID – You need to request the tax ID or Social Security # from all suppliers since that is a key piece of information you will need for the 1099 tax form.  When preparing 1099 forms, QuickBooks will take the tax ID info from here.
       A WORD OF CAUTION:  If you do not have the tax ID # for a vendor, you will not be able to print a 1099 form.
       TIP: Before you issue the first payment to a 1099 vendor, ask them to supply you with a completed W9 form.  This form will have all of the key info that you need in order to create a 1099 form.
   12. Track Payments for 1099 – by marking this box, QuickBooks will track these vendors and include them on a 1099 report. If the supplier is not incorporated, you are required to send them a 1099 tax form if you pay them $600 or more in a calendar year.

Step 4 – Other Vendor Info

Next, add in additional vendor information with the fields below:

1. Attachments – Attach any documents that you would like to keep on file for this vendor (e.g. signed contracts or copy of email correspondence).
2. Billing rate (/hr) – Enter the billing rate for this vendor for easy reference.
3. Opening balance – This field can be used to enter an outstanding balance that you have with a vendor. For example, if you are converting from another bookkeeping system to QuickBooks and you have some outstanding bills, then you can enter the total outstanding balance here when you set them up in QuickBooks.  When you write a check to pay those bills, then you can apply the payment to this opening balance.
4. Account Number – If you have an account number with your vendor you can enter it here for easy reference.

Step 5 – Review Vendor Set Up

Now that you have completed the vendor set up, the vendor will appear in the Vendor Center as indicated below. You can review the information to ensure it’s all correct.

When to Import Vendor Info Using an Excel or CSV File

Setting up your vendor profiles in QuickBooks Online allows you to quickly enter vendor bills since all of your information like remit to address and due date will automatically populate from the vendor profile.

If you have more than 10 vendors to set up, I would recommend that you put the information in an Excel document and import the data into QuickBooks Online. This will save you a lot of time over manual entry, which we discussed in the previous lesson.

How To Import Vendor Info into QuickBooks Online Using an Excel or CSV File

QuickBooks allows you to capture a lot of data about your vendors, but the key fields that you should include in your Excel or CSV file are as follows:

• First/Last Name for Individual vendors or Company name for a business
• Email
• Phone
• Remit to address

Don’t worry about the format of the spreadsheet, just make sure that you have the above key fields in the spreadsheet.

Once you have your spreadsheet ready, follow the instructions below to import the data into QuickBooks.

Step 1 – Navigate to Import Screen

To import into QuickBooks, navigate to the Vendor Center.  Click the drop down arrow to the right of the blue New vendor button and select Import Vendors as indicated below.

Step 2 – Select the Excel Document to Upload

Click the Browse button to locate your excel file, as indicated below & go to the next screen.

TIP: If you want to see a sample Excel file, just click the Download a sample file link as indicated below. Keep in mind that there is no need to reformat your spreadsheet.  In the next step, we are going to map the data so that QuickBooks will pull the right data from your spreadsheet.

Step 3 – Map your Data

In this screen, we will tell QuickBooks which field in our spreadsheet to pull the vendor info from. By doing this, we will ensure that the information is imported into the right fields in QuickBooks.

A. QuickBooks Field – This is the field in QuickBooks where the data will import.

B. Your Field – From the dropdown, select the field in your spreadsheet that matches the QuickBooks field (i.e. the field where the info should import to).

TIP#1: As you can see in the screenshot above, the fields in your spreadsheet do not have to match the field names in QuickBooks. For example, in QuickBooks the Customer field is Customer Name in the spreadsheet.

TIP#2: Don’t worry about having more fields in your spreadsheet than what you see in QuickBooks. The only data that will import into QuickBooks are the fields that you match to the QuickBooks fields. You can indicate No Match for the fields that you do not wish to import into QuickBooks, as indicated above for the last 3 fields (Opening Balance, Opening Balance Date and Tax ID).

Once you have completed mapping your data, go to the next screen.

Step 4 – Final Review of Data before Import

This is your final opportunity to review the data and how it will import into QuickBooks. Be sure that you double check the following:

• That the number of records agrees with your spreadsheet
• That the info is in the right fields (i.e. Email address is in the Email field etc;)

If something is not right, click the Back button to go back and make any necessary changes.  Select Import once you are ready to proceed.

Step 5 – Import is Complete

Once the import is complete, QuickBooks will provide you with a message like the following: 10 out of 10 vendors have been successfully imported!  

How Do You Modify a Vendor?

You can change or update vendor information anytime. From the Vendor Center, click on the vendor’s name as indicated below. Make any necessary changes to the vendor profile.

How Do You Delete a Vendor in QuickBooks Online?

Similar to Customers, you cannot delete a vendor once you have used them in a transaction. For example, once you have created a check to pay a vendor, that is considered a transaction. This check (transaction) is linked to financial statements, and those financial statements will be used when you file your taxes.  

However, if you decide that you no longer will do business with a vendor, you can inactivate a vendor just like you can inactivate a customer. Inactivating the vendor will simply hide the vendor from the Vendor Center, but they will still appear in all financial records if there has been a transaction.

To inactivate a vendor from the Vendor Center, select the vendor as indicated below.

Select the Edit button at the top of the next screen as indicated below.

At the very bottom of the next screen, select the Make Inactive button as indicated below & Save your changes.

The next screen will confirm whether or not you want to inactivate the vendor.

A WORD OF CAUTION: If you have an outstanding balance for a vendor, QuickBooks will display a message similar to the one below.  The best course of action in this situation is to pay the outstanding balance first and then inactivate the vendor.  If you do not plan to pay the outstanding balance then you should void the bills in QuickBooks and then proceed to inactivate the vendor.

Wrap Up

That wraps up the lesson on how to set up vendors in QuickBooks Online. The next module in our QuickBooks Online Training Course will be Managing Sales and Income in QuickBooks Online. In this module, we’ll cover to send and receive payments, estimates, and invoices and record deposits in QuickBooks Online. To access any of the lessons in our series, click here. 

Our Recommended QuickBooks Apps