Merchants and merchant groups
A merchant is a retailer from which goods are purchased, for example, a hardware store or a discount retailer. Setting up merchants is optional.
Merchants
One advantage of creating merchant records is for tax reporting. When a merchant is created, the tax ID number and the income code can be specified. When income codes are applied to active merchants, 1099 reportable income for any purchases can be tracked.
See the Payables User Guide.
A merchant can be associated with a payables vendor. The associated vendor is used when a purchase order number is not specified in these procurement records:
- Statement transactions for procurement cards
- Import records for statement transactions
Merchant groups belong to a program, and are set up by merchant name, or by merchant category code.
You cannot delete a merchant record if it is assigned to a merchant group.
See Creating merchants.
Merchant groups
Merchants can be divided into groups. When reviewing cardholder requests, decide whether to include or exclude merchants that are in the merchant group from the procurement card transactions. If merchants are included, then only the merchant records that are assigned to the merchant group are valid for that card.
If merchants are excluded, then only merchants that are not in the merchant group are valid for that card.