Manage vendors

Vendors represent the payees you pay through Bill Pay. Each vendor needs to be active and have a payment method configured before you can submit a bill for ACH payment.

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Add a vendor

1. Go to Vendors in the left-hand menu
2. Click New Vendor
3. Fill in the vendor details — name, legal name, address, tax ID, and spend category
4. Click Save

If your approval policy requires vendor creation approval, the new vendor routes to an approver before becoming active. See Approval workflows for details.

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Bulk import vendors

If you’re adding more than a few vendors, use bulk import to create them from a CSV file instead of one at a time.

1. Go to Vendors in the left-hand menu
2. Click Import vendors in the top-right of the Vendors page
3. Choose Bulk import (CSV) from the dropdown
4. (Optional) Download the template — vendor-import-template.csv — to start from a pre-formatted file
5. Upload your CSV
6. Map each CSV column to the matching vendor field, then review the preview
7. Confirm to start the import

You can return to past or in-progress imports from the same dropdown by choosing View imports.

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CSV columns

You can upload your own export — column headers don’t have to match exactly. On the mapping step, pick which CSV column feeds each vendor field. Map every required field before you continue.

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Review and fix rows

After mapping, Dash.fi parses every row and shows a preview table:

• Dash.fi flags rows with validation errors — missing required fields, invalid currency or country codes, malformed emails, and so on.
• Click any row to open it in a side sheet, fix the values inline, then save.
• You can confirm the import even when some rows still have errors. Dash.fi creates the valid rows and skips the flagged ones. Skipped rows stay visible in the import record so you can fix and retry them.

Imports run in the background. Close the page and come back later — the status updates on the Imports screen and on the import detail page.

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Approval policy

Imported vendors follow your existing vendor creation policy:

• If vendor creation doesn’t require approval, Dash.fi creates imported vendors as active and ready to use.
• If vendor creation does require approval, each imported vendor lands as pending and routes to an approver before it becomes active, exactly like vendors you create through New vendor.

See Approval workflows for how approval routing works.

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Add a payment method

Once a vendor is active, add an ACH payment method so bills can be paid:

1. Open the vendor record
2. Go to the Payment Methods tab
3. Click Add payment method
4. Enter the vendor’s bank account and routing numbers
5. (Optional) Select an Account type of Checking or Saving. Leave it unset if you don’t know which the vendor uses.
6. (Optional) Enter a Nickname, such as Main AP account, to label the method. Nicknames can be up to 100 characters.
7. Save

If your policy gates payment method changes behind an approval step, the new method routes for review before it’s active.

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Payment method nicknames

A nickname is your own label for an ACH or single-use card payment method. Use it to tell apart multiple methods on the same vendor, for example a main operating account and a separate remittance account. When a method has a nickname, Dash.fi shows the nickname in place of the default label (such as ACH · <account name>), with the default label underneath. Nicknames appear in:

• The vendor’s Payment Methods tab
• The ACH and single-use card pickers on the bill sheet
• The review payment step and batch payment details
• Approval requests for vendor payment methods

To add, change, or remove a nickname on an existing method:

1. Open the vendor record and go to the Payment Methods tab
2. Open the payment method’s actions menu and click Edit nickname
3. Enter the new nickname, or leave the field empty to remove it
4. Click Save

If your policy requires approval for payment method updates, approvers see the nickname change in the request, including the current nickname and the proposed one. A removed nickname shows as None.

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Bank account review for Pay in N days

Dash.fi reviews vendor bank accounts before paying them from a Pay in N days cash advance. If Dash.fi denies an account, the account can’t receive Pay in N days payments. You can still pay it by ACH from your own account. On a bill, the vendor’s bank account selector labels a denied account Can’t receive Pay later payments, and Dash.fi blocks submitting a Pay in N days bill to it. Pay in N days payments to the account that haven’t paid out yet are cancelled or stopped. See Vendor bank accounts that can’t receive Pay in N days for what happens to affected payments. To keep using Pay in N days for the vendor, add a different bank account for them. If you think the decision is a mistake, contact Dash.fi support.

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Map to your accounting platform

If you use QuickBooks, Xero, or NetSuite, match each Dash.fi vendor to its record in your accounting platform. That way card transactions and bill payments post to the right payee in your GL. Most of the time, Dash.fi creates and links the matching vendor automatically on the first sync. When it can’t, usually because the name conflicts with an existing record, link the vendor manually. You can also link vendors up-front from the card transactions queue. When a reviewer is coding an expense and the merchant name matches an unlinked vendor in your accounting platform, Dash.fi flags the row with an amber link icon and blocks Ready until a vendor is picked. Selecting a vendor from the row’s dropdown creates the Dash.fi vendor pre-linked to it on the next sync, instead of creating a duplicate. See Vendor on the coding transactions page for the reviewer flow. You need the vendor:admin permission and an active accounting connection to view or change the vendor mapping.

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Check whether a vendor is linked

1. Open the vendor record from Vendors
2. On the General tab, look for the QuickBooks / Xero / NetSuite vendor field at the top of the sheet

What you see tells you the current link state:

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Link a vendor manually

Use this when the automatic create has failed, or when you want to wire up an existing record before the first sync.

1. Open the vendor record and stay on the General tab
2. Click Link existing <platform> vendor
3. Start typing in the search box — Dash.fi searches your accounting platform by vendor name
4. Select the matching record

The link saves immediately. To re-sync any expenses that previously failed with a Vendor creation failed error, open the transaction and mark it ready again.

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Relink a vendor to a different record

If a vendor points at the wrong record — a duplicate, or one that’s since been merged — you can switch it to a different one.

1. Open the vendor record
2. On the General tab, click Change next to the linked vendor name
3. Search for and select the correct record

Future syncs use the new mapping. Already-synced transactions aren’t rewritten in your accounting platform — adjust those there if needed.

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Update vendor details

Open the vendor record and edit any field directly. Changes to sensitive fields (legal name, tax ID, payment methods) may trigger an approval step depending on your vendor update policy.

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Deactivate a vendor

Open the vendor record and set the status to Inactive. Inactive vendors can’t be used on new bills. Existing bills already associated with the vendor are unaffected.

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Approval workflows for vendors

Your organisation can require approval for:

• Creating a new vendor
• Updating vendor details
• Adding, updating, or removing payment methods

This is configured in Company → Policy → Vendor management. See Policy Manager for setup instructions.

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FAQ