What are Suppliers?
In Lightyear, you create supplier profiles known as Suppliers, which are not to be confused with Supplier Cards from your accounting software.
When a map is established, Lightyear pulls the Supplier name from the invoice and saves this against the new map. Next, the Supplier Card, which is taken from your connected accounting software, needs to be connected to that Lightyear supplier name so both match and can be made active once the map is used.
Every time a new supplier document comes into Lightyear, you apply a map or request one, then connect your accounting supplier, default GL codes, etc and apply the map and newly active supplier to the invoice.
You only need to do this once per supplier document, and from then on, Lightyear will remember and apply these details for you. The new document will then go straight to your approvals workflow. You will not be able to export any documents unless this is done.
Create a Supplier Profile
There are two ways to create and activate suppliers:
Apply the supplier details during the mapping stage (recommended)
Create Suppliers in the Supplier Tab
🤓 Tip: If you're just starting to use Lightyear, you don't need to create all your suppliers immediately. The quickest and most efficient way to create suppliers is during the first time that you receive a bill from that supplier; see Processing Tab.
Create a Supplier via the Supplier Tab
Select Suppliers from the navigation menu, and you will be taken to the Manage Suppliers page.
From here, you can locate existing suppliers and manage their profiles.
Click on the + Supplier button to open the new profile for the supplier's details.
📌 Note: If you do not want to use the ABN lookup or do not have an ABN, tick the 'no ABN' checkbox.
The Supplier's details in Lightyear are broken down into several tabs:
Profile
Extraction Rules
Product/Rules Automation
Profile tab
Within the Suppliers Profile tab, the following fields are available to populate and update.
Field name | Description |
Lightyear Supplier | What you want to call the supplier in Lightyear |
Supplier ABN/VAT/GST No | May not be mandatory in your jurisdiction. For Australian Lightyear customers, we will be able to use this ABN information to do ABN checks on your Australian suppliers. |
Accounting Supplier | Also known as a Supplier Card. This is what your accounting software uses to reference the Supplier. Selecting your supplier card in this field allows Lightyear to export bill data correctly to your accounting software. See below for more information on this. |
Country | For the supplier. This is important as Lightyear uses this information to determine tax calculations. |
Registered Company Name | The names that Lightyear will provide to you if it is able to retrieve the details from the ABR (Australian Business Registry) website. Note that it may sometimes provide you with more than one name to choose from. |
Currency | Defaults to the currency of the country you selected for your supplier, but can be edited to suit the currency in which they normally bill you. For instance, Facebook generally bills as an Irish supplier, but in your local currency (not euros) |
Accounts email | the email address for the accounts department of your supplier |
Orders email | this email address will be the default when generating Purchase Orders through Lightyear |
Registered for GST/VAT | In Australia, Lightyear checks the ABN of the Supplier with the Australian Business Registry, and lets you know if they are registered for GST at the time you create the Supplier |
Inventory Supplier | This is how your supplier appears in your POS or Inventory system. You will not see this box unless you have told Lightyear that you use a 3-rd party Inventory system. |
Default GL Code | The General Ledger Code from your accounting software that will automatically be associated with the supplier. This is optional, as you can assign one here & then all future bills going to your Approvals for this supplier will be assigned this GL Code. Or if your GL Code is always changing for this supplier, you may choose to leave this blank and then assign it in the Approvals or Review tab, each time. |
Department | You can select one or multiple departments that this supplier will be in. |
Default Tax Code | If you leave this blank, Lightyear will continue to use the default taxable tax-rate that you chose as part of completing your Accounting Supplier set-up. But, if in special circumstances you would prefer for the default taxable tax code for this supplier to be different than your default taxable tax code that you have set for your company, then you can set it here. |
Location | dependent on your Accounting Software (and set-up), this may not be here, or may be called Tracking Category, or Category, or Job etc |
Department | If you are using Departments in Lightyear, you may assign the supplier to one of your Departments here. |
Number of Days Credit | The number of days credit a supplier offers you. If this is set to anything other than 0, this will override any due date that is extracted from a bill, or if no due date has been extracted from a bill, this will create one for you. |
From end of month | Check this box to set a due date for a specific number of days after the end of the month. |
Shared ABNs | If two businesses share the same ABN but need to be maintained as separate supplier profiles, leave the ABN field blank for both profiles. This prevents Lightyear from automatically merging them based on the shared ABN. |
If you need to update details for multiple suppliers at once, you can use the CSV import feature in Lightyear. Here's how:
From the Lightyear menu, select Suppliers.
Export the supplier list as a CSV file.
Add or update the desired details in the appropriate column(s) of the CSV file. When applicable, ensure the codes match those in your accounting system (e.g., Xero).
Re-import the updated CSV file into Lightyear to apply the changes in bulk.
More on Accounting Supplier
To move a bill to the Signed Off tab, from where it will be exported to your accountancy software, you must have a Supplier Card associated with the supplier. If your accountancy software is not connected to Lightyear via an API, you need to ensure that the Supplier Cards in Lightyear match exactly those that exist in your accountancy software, including case-sensitive characters and spaces. For more details, see our Accounting integration guides.
📌 Note: Accounting Supplier, Inventory Supplier and Department will only show here if they are enabled under Company Settings
Keyword Automation
If you have turned on Keyword Automation in your Lightyear Company Settings, you will see the rules you have set here. This feature allows you to automatically code bills to a specific GL Code or Tracking Category, etc based on a unique string of characters within the bill, such as an address or site ID.
Departments
You can assign a single or multiple departments to a Supplier:
Click on the Department box in the Profile tab under the header Supplier Rules.
Select the departments bills from this supplier would be relevant to.
Click Update to save.
📌 Note: If the department list is blank, either no departments have been created, or the departments feature has not been enabled. If a department isn't showing in the list, it hasn't been created yet. For more details on setting up Departments, see Departments.
Extraction Rules tab
Extraction Rules are the Map and Smart Extract rules that you have used for this supplier. These rules will build up automatically over time.
You cannot add a rule in the supplier's profile, but you can delete one. You can also reorder your preference for which Lightyear attempts to apply the rules. If Lightyear receives a bill from this email address, it will attempt these maps to try to extract the data, in sequence, from top to bottom.
To stop a map from being used automatically, remove the extraction rule from the supplier by selecting the Trash can icon for the specific line and clicking Confirm.
You can save more than one map and sender as the 'Best Map', as our system will first try the most recently saved one, then if that doesn't work, it will try the others one by one
🤓Tip: For more details, see Smart Extract+ Overview.
Product/Rules Automation tab
If you have turned on the Price Checking function in your Lightyear Company Settings, you will see the Products tab.
Merge Suppliers
You have the option to merge suppliers to maintain reliable and accurate supplier details. For instance, if you accidentally created two Lightyear Suppliers for the same company, or the supplier changed their ABN, you can merge duplicates to reduce the risk of duplicate or over-payment.
⚠️ Important: Once a merge is confirmed, it cannot be undone. Ensure you review the records carefully before proceeding.
To merge suppliers:
Open the supplier you DO NOT wish to keep.
Click the Merge button.
In the pop-up window, select the supplier you want to merge with (this one will remain).
Click Confirm.
All invoices, including archived ones, bills and statements will be updated to reflect the merged supplier record. The first selected supplier will be removed from Lightyear.
🤓 Tip: Always use unique identifiers like sender email addresses or business names to distinguish between supplier profiles, and avoid entering shared identifiers like ABNs unless necessary. If a merge has already occurred due to shared ABNs, recreate the removed supplier as a new profile, ensuring each profile has the correct business name and no ABN is entered.
Recover deleted Suppliers for merging
If you accidentally delete a supplier, you can recover it before proceeding with the merge. Follow these steps:
Go to the Suppliers section in Lightyear.
Open the Inactive tab to view deleted suppliers.
Locate the deleted supplier and reinstate it.
Once reinstated, you can proceed with the merge process.
Active and Inactive Suppliers
In Lightyear, "deleting" a supplier makes a supplier inactive, rather than removing it from your account.
To delete a Supplier:
Go to Suppliers.
Open the Active tab.
Click the Bin icon on a Supplier's row.
Restore inactive Suppliers
Inactive suppliers can be restored to avoid duplication. For instance, if you attempt to add a supplier that is currently set as inactive, you may encounter a message indicating that the supplier already exists.
To restore a supplier:
Go to Suppliers.
Open the Inactive tab.
Locate the archived supplier you wish to restore.
Click the Reinstate icon on the supplier's row.
Once a supplier is active, you can edit the supplier details as needed, such as linking the supplier to your accounting system.