Is there a way to make a list of suppliers inactive through using the import template?

[monteypoo]

I have a list of suppliers that I would like to make inactive in Concur, I don't want to delete them. In the import template I see that there is a field where the supplier can be flagged Y/N for deletion, but there doesn't appear to be a field flagged for activation/deactivation. I would like to check if it's possible to make suppliers inactive in this way, I'm wondering if perhaps the field is hidden from the import template and can be manually added?

Many thanks

[PoojaKumatkar]

Hi @monteypoo ,

Technically this is not feasible as there is no field available in import template and also field cannot be added manually in template as these are Concur's standard template. 

Hence, you need to inactivate the vendors manually one by one.

Regarding this requirement and system limitation, what we have done in one of my project is, we considered custom field called as 'purchasing block (Y/N)'. So, if particular vendor is blocked then we need to update Y else default will be N. And we have written audit rule where we are checking if vendor purchasing block = Y then trigger error msg as 'this vendor is blocked for purchasing, please select other appropriate vendor' something like this to restrict user while submitting PR/Invoice with inactive/blocked vendor.

So, in such cases, vendor can be manually marked as inactive/blocked using import template available under vendor manager page or through SFTP flat file. 

Note - This is just an alternate workaround to handle this. 

If this answers your query, then please mark solution as accepted.

[monteypoo]

Thanks Pooja,

I was under the impression that it may be possible to modify the import file to include additional fields as we have done this with the new user import file which is also a standard template.

@KevinD Are you able to confirm please that this isn't possible?

Many thanks

[KevinD]

@monteypoo vendors cannot be deactivated with the template. However, you can deactivate several vendors at once. See my screenshot. I'm guessing you asked about using a template so you can deactivate several vendors at one time, correct? 

On the Vendor Manager screen, change the view to Approved Vendors, select all that need to be deactivated, then use the Actions button to get to the option to deactivate.

[monteypoo]

Thanks @KevinD , unfortunately this isn't what I was hoping for as I have around 300 accounts that need inactivating so selecting them one by one across multiple pages will take us some time, but it sounds like this is the only option.

This does seem rather strange that Concur would provide the option to delete suppliers en-masse but don't provide the same option to inactivate them,  it's quite common to deactivate large volumes of suppliers in ERP systems after a certain number of years of inactivity, prior to deleting them from the ERP system entirely.

[KevinD]

@monteypoo I don't disagree. I'm just the messenger. 🙂