Adding and Managing Vendors

Vendor management in Light is the foundation of AP. This article covers creating vendors, configuring banking details, managing entity assignments, and tracking vendor status.

# Creating a Vendor

1. Navigate to Spend management → Vendors
2. Click + Create vendor
3. Choose one of two creation modes:

# Option A — Customer Request

Send the vendor a portal link so they fill in their own information.

Required fields:

• Vendor name
• Country
• Entity (one or more)
• Vendor email (portal invitation is sent here)

Optional:

• CC email — copies an additional contact on the invitation

Once submitted, the vendor receives a link to complete their business and banking details directly in the Light vendor portal.

# Option B — Manual Entry

Fill in the vendor's information yourself via a 3-step form.

Step 1 – Business

Step 2 – Payment

Banking fields adapt based on the selected bank country:

Additional optional fields: BIC/SWIFT, bank name, bank address.

Step 3 – Accounting

Default payment method controls how bills from this vendor are paid after approval:

• Automatic (default): Light schedules the payment automatically after approval. Requires a host-to-host bank connection.
• Direct Debit: Bill goes straight to Unpaid status — the vendor collects the payment directly from your bank account.
• Manual: Bill goes through guardrails and batch approval, then moves to Unpaid — you pay the vendor outside Light (wire, check, etc.).

When Direct Debit or Manual is selected, vendor banking details (IBAN, BIC, etc.) are not required when submitting bills.

Click Create to save.

# Vendor Statuses

The vendor list defaults to showing Onboarding, In review, and Active vendors.

# Banking Details and Change Requests

When bank details are updated — either by you or through a vendor portal submission — the change goes through an approval flow before taking effect.

While a change is pending you'll see two tabs on the vendor:

• Awaiting approval — shows the proposed new banking details
• Current details — shows the existing banking details still in use

# Entity Assignment

A vendor can be assigned to one or more company entities. After picking a default entity, you can configure the following defaults that pre-fill on bills from this vendor:

• Default GL account
• Default tax code
• Default from account — the company bank account used to pay this vendor

The entity-specific defaults (GL account, tax code, from account) are only editable once a default entity has been selected.

# Approvers

Approvers can be assigned to a vendor in the Accounting step during creation, or edited later. Assigned approvers are required to sign off on bills or changes from that vendor based on your organization's approval workflow.

# Vendor Details Tabs

Once a vendor is created, opening it shows the following tabs:

# Related Articles

• AP overview
• Vendor portal and magic links
• Entering and ingesting bills
• Bill approval workflows