Duplicate Suppliers

The information entered against all new and changed contributor records is compared to data on other supplier records to try to identify possible duplication. In particular fields such as forenames, surnames, address first lines, postcodes, email addresses and telephone numbers are checked. Any records which have been flagged by the system as possible duplicate records appear in this screen to review.

Any payments to the suppliers appearing in this screen are put on hold until they are cleared.

Clearing a record from the duplicate supplier screen

Highlighting a record on the Left side of the screen will bring up a list of possible duplicate records on the right hand side. These will include records that have similar street address, names, postcode, telephone number(s) etc. If you are happy that the two highlighted records are different entities then click on Clear. Any restrictions on transactions will be lifted.

Putting notes against a possible duplicate

If you are still investigating whether two records are the same, then you can enter on a Note to indicate the progress (e.g. emailed and waiting for a response) for other users to to view. You can also tick the “Being investigated?” checkbox to move the possible duplicate to the “Chased” screen, away from the main list.

If the records are confirmed as duplicates

For those records that are confirmed as duplicates you should Merge the two together. For more information on merging click here

Status

There are four filter options that can be applied to the results: New (all potential duplicates records that have been newly flagged and have not been cleared by the RCS Administrator), Chased (all potential duplicate records which have been marked as “Being investigated?” and not cleared), Cleared (all potential duplicate records that have been cleared), All (All records that have ever been flagged up as potential duplicates). To access each of these filtered lists click on the relevant radio button and click Refresh.

If you press the Payments button you will be shown a list of scheduled transactions for the highlighted supplier.

Clicking on Change History shows details of changes made to the contributor’s name and contact details. The fields that have been updated will be highlighted in red. At the bottom of the screen you can see the date and time the change was made, and who made the change.

You may toggle between updates to the record by clicking on Show previous change and Show next change.

Records with the same VAT

The Accounts Payable team enters and maintains VAT details, and any VAT number is sent to RCS and recorded against the relevant supplier. If the same VAT number appears in RCS more than once then it is flagged as a possible duplicate supplier.

When the Duplicate Suppliers screen opens potential VAT duplicates are hidden. If you click on the Show option under VAT and then click on Refresh, you will see a list that includes potential duplicates that have the same VAT numbers.