Enter the sort name for this vendor, up to 15 characters. This field automatically defaults to the first 15 characters of the vendor’s name entered above.

You can override the default, but you might only do this in the case that the sort name is alphabetically incorrect. For example, if the vendor’s name were J. Smith Electric, you would probably enter the sort name as Smith, J.

The sort name must be unique. If the default provided is the same as that of an existing vendor, a message will be given that the sort name is already in use by another vendor and a different sort name will be required. It is recommended that the last characters may be changed to make the sort name unique.

The system uses this sort name for alphabetical sorting, such as on reports and lookups (F4). Vendor input fields will allow entry of either the vendor number or the vendor sort name. If entering the vendor sort name, the software will automatically switch to the vendor number. Because of this feature, it is important not to enter all numerics into the vendor sort name field.

You can change sort name, even after transactions have been posted. If you change a sort name for any given vendor, the system automatically cycles through all existing transactions for that vendor and adjusts the appropriate records accordingly.