Most Graphite customers choose to load "legacy suppliers" into Graphite Connect either during the initial implementation or immediately thereafter.
Legacy suppliers are those that you have done business with prior to using Graphite Connect.
What this includes
- This pre-populates your supplier list with active ERP details from your system, making it easy to send a request to an existing supplier when information changes or when a rescreen is due.
- Legacy suppliers are checked against known bank account numbers for enhanced fraud mitigation.
- Data cleansing! Suppliers are required to re-enter all tax and banking information during supplier onboarding; the Graphite team validates this information in the same way as new suppliers.
- Pre-populates system with active ERP details from your system, making it easy to send a request to an existing supplier when information changes or when a rescreen is due. It includes the information you own about that supplier, such as ERP ID(s) and payment terms
- Supplier-owned data may be pre-populated in specific scenarios, but the process will never pre-populate supplier-owned tax details
- Legacy suppliers are checked against known bank account numbers for enhanced fraud mitigation
- Suppliers are required to enter all information during supplier onboarding; this information is validated by the Graphite team in the same way as new suppliers
Benefits of a legacy upload
- Your business owners can search and find existing suppliers, making it easy to send an invitation when needed.
- Upon completion of onboarding, these suppliers will sync with existing ERP records, minimizing the possibility of unintended duplication
- Enforces all users make updates in a single location (vs. maintaining access to existing ERP systems).
What comes first
Before any work is done with legacy records, Graphite must first be configured to meet the needs of your ERP system. Your Implementation Manager and Integration Specialist will work with you to ensure that the appropriate fields and list values are set properly.
Your Implementation Manager will work with you to determine if any adjustments to survey questions or workflows are needed for legacy records.
- For example, you may determine that legacy records can bypass an initial NSJ approval or Privacy and Security surveys will be deferred until six months after re-onboarding.
After the ERP section is finalized, the Graphite team will provide to your teams a template (.xlsx) and instructions. It is your responsibility to provide back to Graphite a list of all records within this expected format.
Data rationalization
The very first thing our team does is review the file for obvious errors and ensure that the data provided meets our expected format. If the legacy template is incomplete or otherwise not ready for us to start our process, we will send it back to your team for modification. Be prepared to answer any questions we might have at this stage.
After the format of the legacy template is reviewed, the Graphite team begins our data rationalization process.
First, we check your supplier list for companies that may already be in our network.
If we find a match, we add your ERP details to the supplier profile and merge with your supplier list.
If there is no match found, we create a placeholder company profile for your ERP data.
We review duplicate tax IDs with your team to determine when they should be merged in Graphite Connect.
Once everything is in Graphite Connect, you can view these records in the ERP Connection Data section of the supplier profile.
Dealing with exceptions
During the data rationalization process, it is common for some records to get flagged as an "exception." When this happens, our team will work with you to determine how to proceed. Depending on why these records are flagged will determine the best next step, but options may include:
- Fixing the data in the source file to resolve the exception
- Ignoring the exception and allow Graphite to treat the record as a "placeholder" (effectively allowing the data to be cleansed during onboarding by the supplier)
- Skipping the exceptions, either to be addressed in a separate delta upload, or skipping them altogether and not upload them into Graphite.
Timeline
The timeline for a legacy upload depends on many factors, including the number of records in your file and the relative cleanliness of existing data. We plan on a minimum of 6-8 weeks for each legacy upload. It is possible that subsequent files that match the format of the first file can be faster, but there is no efficiency gained in sending over multiple small files.
Graphite will never upload legacy records into Production until testing is done by your Graphite implementation team and final UAT is completed by you. Additionally, it is your team's responsibility for final data reconciliation (i.e. what your provided is what was uploaded).
Frequently Asked Questions
- What if we don’t want to provide bank account details? This is required for legacy uploads. Graphite takes banking fraud seriously, and we use multiple checkpoints to identify high-risk and low-risk supplier updates. When a legacy supplier adds their banking details during initial onboarding, the accounts are checked against existing bank accounts. Whenever there is a change to a legacy bank account, the system immediately flags this update as a high risk and our live ID verification process is initiated.
- Do legacy suppliers have to go through the same process as net-new suppliers? No. Graphite is able to modify the NSJ requirements and subsequent workflow based on your business requirements.
- Can we go live prior to our legacy suppliers being loaded into Graphite? Absolutely! In fact, it is not uncommon to load legacy suppliers in batches in order to support your business objectives. If you choose to launch prior to the legacy supplier upload, it is important to have a process in place to ensure duplicate vendors are not added to your ERP.
- Can we pre-populate all supplier-owned information from our ERP? No. With the exception of optional legacy address details, Graphite requires the supplier to enter all information during onboarding. This ensures the network has the most up-to-date information. All tax, address, and banking information goes through our standard validation process.
- Can I send bulk invitations with my legacy suppliers? Together with your Implementation Manager you will identify which suppliers you want to send invites to in bulk. The quantity and cadence of these invites are highly dependant on both Graphite Support AND your team's ability to manage this uptick in activity. Once the suppliers you wish to invite in bulk are identified, you will send a notification to the suppliers and Graphite will trigger the bulk invitations.
- What if my supplier doesn't want to go through this process again? You can still make payments to existing supplier records! As long as these legacy suppliers do not need to change their banking details or other key commercial information, they do not need to re-onboard. But when they do need to change those details, Graphite Connect's fraud mitigation process ensures you are making updates securely. You control what level of "re-screening" is required for your legacy suppliers (compared to net-new). Your implementation manager will work with you to discuss process improvements to ensure that over time your existing suppliers are managed within Graphite Connect.