In Accounting, there are times when purchases are made that do not require an actual vendor to be created. For example, if you go to the grocery store, purchase lunch for an associate, or buy office supplies from a one-time retailer, you may not want to create a separate vendor for every store.

In these situations, you can use the Generic Vendor when entering Withdrawals, Deposits, or Credit Card entries.

When entering a transaction, start typing Generic or Vendor in the Vendor field. The Generic Vendor option will appear in the dropdown for you to select.

Generic Vendor is best for small, infrequent purchases where creating and maintaining a vendor record is not practical. Common examples include:

For any vendor you pay on a recurring basis, create a proper vendor record instead. Transactions coded to Generic Vendor cannot be filtered or reported by vendor name, which makes spend analysis difficult. If you need to track spending with a particular company over time, set up a named vendor.