QuickBooks 2018 Accountant: Merge Multiple Vendors

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Those using QuickBooks 2018 Accountant version and QuickBooks Enterprise v18 (all versions) will find an entirely new way to Merge Multiple Vendors. Despite the fact that we have had the ability to merge one vendor into another vendor, this new tool represents a better way to search for, sort and compare vendors that need to be merged together.

To use this feature, go to the Accountant menu and select Client Data Review. Next, choose Merge Vendors. Alternately, you can navigate to this feature within one of the Accountant Versions by selecting the Accountant Center and choose Merge Vendors. You must be in single-user mode to perform the merge function.

You can merge up to four vendors at a time using this new tool. While this feature will work in most cases, not all vendors are eligible for merger. For example, you cannot merge vendors with transactions posted through bank feeds or with direct deposits. You also cannot merge vendors that are Sales Tax (or in non-US versions VAT tax) agencies. Another limitation is associated with QuickBooks files making use of Multi-currency.

  • Select the Master Vendor you want to retain in QuickBooks, and then select up to three other vendors you want to merge into your Master Vendor.
  • Choose the relevant information from the other vendors you want to retain and migrate into your Master Vendor
  • Because this merging process is irreversible, QuickBooks forces you to make a backup of your Company file prior to the actual merger taking place.
  • Once the back-up process is finished, QuickBooks proceeds with migrating any of the identification details you selected from the other vendors into the Master Vendor. Next, it merges all of the transactions from the other vendors into the Master Vendor.
  • At the conclusion of the process, QuickBooks displays a message confirming "Merge Complete," which reminds you of the location of the back-up file made prior to merging the vendors.

While this new feature is designed to provide accountants and ProAdvisors with more options and better control over the merge process for duplicate vendors, I can also see additional uses for this functionality. 

One possible use would be to assist Pro and Premier users with reducing the size of their Vendor list when their total names approach the 14,500 list limitation of those products. It would be fairly easy to reduce the number of vendors in a controlled fashion where old vendors are merged into a common vendor name like "2008 Vendors" representing those vendors whose last transactions were in 2008.

While some third party software programs can perform this task, they tend to provide less control and fewer options than is available with this new internal feature.

Editor's Note: The information and screen shots appearing in this article were taken from a pre-release version. There could be differences from what's included here and what exists within the initial or subsequent releases of the software.

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