Using Accounts Payable

Understanding Vendor Demographicstime you enter his donor record in Benefactor.During this entire 30 or 40 year period, Dr. Jones has had one, and onlyone, Person record in the Colleague and Benefactor database. When youuse Person LookUp to find his record, you may see a number of codesbelow his name, all representing relationships he has had with yourinstitution over the years. His name has been added successively to theappropriate demographic subfiles, reflecting his continuing relationshipwith your institution, albeit in different capacities.Some of the same basic principles are involved in keeping the demographicrecords for a vendor. First, each vendor should have one, and only one, recordin your database. This prevents duplication and needless redundancy. Second,a vendor may have had more than one role with your institution, particularlyan individual who is an independent contractor. Third, in the case of acorporate vendor, your vendors are listed in several subfiles (CORP,CORP.FOUNDS, and VENDORS) all of which are keyed to the centralperson record in the PERSON file.One additional demographic division is used for vendors: records for a vendorthat is a person are maintained separately from records for a vendor that is acorporation or organization. The following section discusses thesedifferences.A Vendor: A Corporation or a Person?When you define a new vendor, Colleague requires you to indicate whetherthe vendor is a person or a corporation. This distinction in Colleague isimportant because different information is required to maintain the record fora corporation from that information required for maintaining the record for aperson.Note that a corporation is not necessarily an incorporated company orbusiness. In Colleague the term “Corporation” refers to any organization,foundation, company, or corporation. Essentially, a corporation is any entitywith a relationship with your institution that is not a single human being, or“Person.”Using Accounts Payable, June 19, 2009 53© 2009 Datatel, Inc.