The mid-reorder vendor checklist I use so a vendor directory stays honest

A text that says "ask Mike about the bolts," three spellings of the same supplier in Gmail, a business-card photo from last year, and a "vendors" tab that froze in March are not a directory you can reorder from. Mid-reorder is where duplicates multiply, payment terms go stale, and the wrong phone number quietly becomes the official contact.

I am a freelancer admin helper. I turn messy vendor contacts into a clean vendor directory. I am not a CPA, procurement consultant, or lawyer — and this is not financial, tax, legal, or purchasing advice. It is the checklist I run mid-reorder (and again before anyone hits "place order") so the directory stays honest while buying is still happening.

(If you want the full messy vendor contacts → clean vendor directory workflow, see my earlier post. This one is the second-pass checklist so duplicate suppliers, stale terms, missing lead times, and ghost contacts do not quietly rewrite who you think you buy from.)

What "honest" looks like mid-reorder

• Every supplier sits on one row — legal/trade name, category, primary contact, phone, email, website, payment terms, lead time, notes
• Duplicate spellings of the same company are merged, not left as three half-filled rows that fight each other
• Category matches how they actually buy (supplies / freelancers / software / logistics — their buckets, not a generic "Other")
• Preferred contact method and lead time are visible without digging through old threads
• Account numbers / portal logins that must stay private are parked or stripped for any shareable view
• You can answer "who do we buy X from, who do we call, and what are the terms?" without reconstructing memory from screenshots

If the only "directory" you have is a sticky labeled "Mike — bolts?" mid-reorder honesty has already slipped.

The mid-reorder vendor checklist (run it before / while you clean)

Use this against the dump (email exports, text screenshots, business-card photos, old CRM/CSV scraps, invoice headers, sticky notes) before you paste everything into a pretty template and call the reorder list safe.

1. Inventory the dump (same day you open the pile)

• [ ] Every scrap is listed once: source, date seen, name-as-written, category guess, contact bits, terms bits, notes
• [ ] Invoice headers and packing slips are treated as evidence of who they already buy from — not ignored because they are "not a CRM"
• [ ] Partial contacts ("Mike," "the bolt place," a phone with no name) are labeled incomplete — not invented into full rows
• [ ] Confidential bits (account #, portal password, negotiated cost they want off a shareable sheet) are marked strip-or-park
• [ ] Anything clearly discontinued, blocked, or "do not use" is labeled stay-off-active — do not resurrect as Preferred

2. Deduplicate before you trust the names

• [ ] Same company, two spellings (Acme / ACME LLC / Acme Supply) = one row — prefer the legal/invoice spelling in Name, aliases in Notes
• [ ] Same phone/email on two "different" vendors is a merge candidate until proven otherwise
• [ ] Freelancer vs company: keep separate rows if they invoice separately — do not smash a 1099 contractor into their old W-2 employer row
• [ ] If identity is unclear, flag identity unclear — do not invent a tidy legal name to make the sheet look finished
• [ ] Skim test: you can answer "is this the same Mike as last quarter?" without re-reading the text dump

3. Lock contact + terms fields that reorder depends on

• [ ] Primary contact = who to call/email for a reorder — not the AP remittance-only address unless that is truly who answers
• [ ] Phone and email (or explicit "email only" / "portal only") — blank contact method is not "they'll figure it out"
• [ ] Payment terms (Net 30 / COD / card on file / unknown) are written as seen — do not invent Net 30 because it is common
• [ ] Lead time / MOQ / reorder unit noted when present on invoices or emails — blanks stay blank or flagged, not guessed
• [ ] Preferred channel (text / email / portal / phone) matches how they actually get a response

4. Catch category and "who sells what" ghosts

• [ ] Category matches their buying language — not a taxonomy nobody on the team uses
• [ ] "What they sell us" is specific enough to reorder (bolts / packaging / bookkeeping software) — not just "vendor"
• [ ] Two suppliers for the same category stay two rows — preferred vs backup is a Notes/flag, not a deleted second row
• [ ] Landlord / utilities / platforms that are not "buyable supplies" are labeled so they do not pollute a supplies reorder view
• [ ] Skim test: you can filter "who do we buy packaging from?" without scanning every Notes cell

5. Honesty tripwires (before you treat the directory as reorder-ready)

• [ ] You did not leave three spellings of the same company as Active Preferred
• [ ] Stale contacts (bounced email, disconnected phone, "Mike left in 2024") are flagged or parked — not presented as current
• [ ] Terms that came from a two-year-old invoice are labeled terms unverified until confirmed — neat formatting does not make them current
• [ ] Incomplete rows stay Needs-confirm — not silently promoted to Active because the sheet looked empty
• [ ] Shareable export has stripped account numbers / passwords — the working sheet can keep them parked off-export

6. Hand-back sanity check

• [ ] Active view answers: who, category, how to reach, terms, lead time — without opening the dump
• [ ] Needs-confirm / Parked views exist so incomplete and do-not-use rows are not deleted into amnesia
• [ ] One sentence of scope on the sheet: "vendor directory for reorder — not a full AP vendor master or procurement system"
• [ ] Non-advice line present: not CPA / procurement / legal advice; confirm terms and contacts before placing orders
• [ ] You would be willing to place your next small reorder from this sheet without reconstructing Mike from a text thread

What I do not do on this pass

I do not rebuild their ERP vendor master, approve new suppliers, negotiate terms, or give tax/procurement advice. Mid-reorder honesty is about one trustworthy directory row per supplier — not a purchasing department in a spreadsheet.

Soft CTA

If you want the messy pile turned into that directory for you: Vendor contacts → vendor directory — $12, usually within 24 hours. Code ADMIN12 takes $2 off. Shop: brittanybonds.gumroad.com · catalog mirror: brittany-bonds.github.io