Managing Partners

Partners are the companies and people your client does business with: suppliers, customers, platforms and service providers. A verified partner is the one canonical record that ties together every name, tax number and bank account a business appears under, so AI Finance Team recognises the other party on each new invoice and bank transaction without anyone checking it.

Verified and unverified partners

When AI Finance Team reads an invoice or imports a bank transaction, it records the other party under the name exactly as it appears on the document. The same business often appears under several names, for example "OpenAI OpCo, LLC" on one invoice and "OpenAI, L.L.C." on another. Until such a name is linked to a verified partner, it is an unverified partner.

An unverified partner is a prompt to review, not an error: the document is fully processed. You see it as:

• Not verified in the Parties card of an invoice, and an amber Verify partner to-do on the invoice and the bank transaction pages;
• a grey Unverified label in the invoice list;
• an amber Unverified pill in the partner picker.

How a name finds its partner

Each time an invoice or a bank transaction is processed, AI Finance Team tries to recognise the other party:

1. Tax number: a name with the same tax number as a known partner is linked to it. Two unverified names with the same tax number are turned into one verified partner.
2. Name and alternative names: on an invoice, a name that matches a verified partner's name or one of its alternative names (ignoring punctuation and legal-form variants) is linked. On a bank transaction the rule is looser: it is linked when exactly one partner name or alternative name is within a few letters of it.
3. Name patterns: prefix rules such as LinkedIn* catch names that change with every transaction.
4. Bank account (bank transactions): an account that belongs to one of your own companies links the transaction to that company (see Internal transfers); an account saved on a verified partner links the transaction to that partner.
5. Matches: when you confirm a match between an invoice and a bank transaction, an unverified name on one side is linked to the verified partner on the other.

What none of these recognises stays unverified until someone links it. Once you add the right alternative name, pattern or bank account, every future document from that party is recognised on its own.

Getting to Partners

From the workspace sidebar, click Master data, then Partners. The page is available to members of the accounting firm; changing partners needs the permission "Edit master data".

The page has two lists:

• Verified partners: your curated partners. Show archived adds archived ones.
• Unverified partners: names that have appeared on documents but are not linked yet, the most active first. Filter chips (All, Invoices, Transactions) and a Source badge on each row tell you where the name was first seen: Invoice, Transaction or Statement PDF.

To bring in a whole list of partners from a spreadsheet, use Import (see Importing Master Data). Where the workspace has Business Central, Import opens a choice of From a file or From Business Central.

Adding and verifying partners

• From an unverified name (recommended): click Create partner on its row. The dialog is filled in from the documents; check it and click Create partner, or Save & open to go on to the partner's page. Every bank transaction with the same name is assigned to the new partner at once, and the name stays attached as an alternative name.
• Link to an existing partner: Link to partner on the row adds the name to a partner you already have. The row's … menu also offers This is our own company.
• From scratch: New Partner asks for the name, tax number and partner ID; everything else is added on the partner's page.
• Verify all partners opens the unverified names in a table. The What happens column says what verifying a row does: Linked to an existing one (a partner with the same tax number already exists), New partner, or New, no tax number. Every row starts ticked except a name with no tax number, because a bare name is the likeliest duplicate. Untick what you do not want and click Verify: only the ticked rows change, and the others stay unverified for later. One opening lists up to 1,000 names; the rest follow the next time. Possible duplicates show up afterwards in the banner. For the keys, see Working in the Spreadsheet Interface.

You can also verify from a document: pick the verified partner in the Partner picker of an invoice, a bank transaction or the bank statement editor. The original name is added to that partner as an alternative name, so the next document under that name is recognised. Verify now → under an unverified picker opens the Partners page with the Create partner dialog ready. The picker shows the text the bank or the invoice actually carried as Raw name:.

A bank fee or interest has no partner: choose - No partner (e.g. bank fee) - at the top of the picker. Transfers between your own accounts link to one of your companies instead (see below).

The partner page

Click a partner's name to open its page. The header shows chips for the rules set on it, such as Fixed invoice category or Always sells, and Merge into…. The page has five tabs: Partner, Rules, Recognition, History and Messages.

1. The tabs.
2. Alternative names, marked auto or manual.
3. Name patterns, and Link matching partners now for the names already there.
4. A bank account that is Not confirmed, with Confirm.
5. A confirmed bank account.

Partner tab

• Identity: the name, partner ID, tax number and country, edited in place with Save. The tax number field accepts a domestic tax number, an EU VAT number or both; paste what is on the document and AI Finance Team structures it (Edit local & EU separately enters the two explicitly). The pair is checked the country-aware way described in Managing Companies.
• Contact: the address.
• Partner kind: Ordinary partner, One of our own companies (see Internal transfers), or Stands for a group that cannot be identified individually (see Invoices to private individuals).
• Company register and Business Central, where your workspace has them. The register section shows what the register holds, lists the differences waiting for a decision, and lets you take a value over or add an account. See Checking Suppliers Against the Company Register.

Recognition tab

Alternative names lists every other name the partner is known under: auto names are unverified names linked to this partner, manual names are ones you added. Type a name and click Add alternative name to add one. Removing an auto name (× and Remove) unlinks that name, so it can be linked elsewhere or left unverified.

Name patterns catch names that change every time, such as card statements where the merchant name carries a reference: LinkedIn* links both "LinkedIn*P3035867117" and "LinkedInPreC *34952934". A pattern needs at least four letters before the *. While you type, the preview shows how many unverified names it would link and how many belong to other partners; Link matching partners now links the existing ones.

Bank accounts are the accounts the partner is paid to. An account read off an invoice, captured from a bank match, or added from the company register is a proposal, shown as Not confirmed, until a person holding "Manage approvals" clicks Confirm - or, in one narrow case, the register confirms the first account itself (see Checking Suppliers Against the Company Register). Only a confirmed account can go into a payment file: this is the control against invoice fraud (see Paying Approved Invoices). Every account also helps recognise the partner's bank transactions.

Rules tab

VAT group (the partner's VAT classification, used to resolve the VAT codes on its invoices) and Always sells (the product or service VAT group this supplier always invoices) set its VAT defaults; see VAT Master Data. Below them are four rules that take a decision away from the AI for a partner whose bookings never vary.

Fixed invoice category

Every line of an invoice from this partner is set to this category, overriding the AI's suggestion. The AI still runs and its opinion is kept on record, but the effective category is yours.

The category must be an active invoice category whose direction fits the invoice: a revenue category is applied to income invoices, a cost category to expenses. If a partner is both customer and supplier and the category only fits one direction, the rule does nothing on the other. Archive the category and the rule goes inactive, with an amber warning on the section until you pick another.

Fixed transaction category

Every bank transaction from this partner is booked to this category when it has none. Unlike the invoice rule, it does not overrule a category that is already there. It only sets the category; whether a transaction needs an invoice is decided by Transaction types, which the tab links to.

Fixed custom categories

Shown once the workspace has an active custom category list, with one picker per list. Every line of this partner's invoices, and every bank transaction from it, gets the picked value before the AI is asked, and the record shows it with a purple Partner rule badge. A list that applies to invoices only, or to bank transactions only, says so under its name and does nothing on the other side.

Like the transaction rule, it fills what is empty and does not replace a value that is already there. A value that was switched off makes the rule inactive, with an amber note under the picker until you choose another.

Fixed payment method

For partners whose invoices state the wrong payment method, most often a card payment reported as cash, which closes the invoice and keeps it out of matching. Unlike the categories it is forward-only, with no run on existing records. See Fixing a Partner's Payment Method.

Your own edits always win

None of the category rules overwrites a value a person set by hand, neither automatically nor in the run on existing records below.

Applying a category rule to records you already have

Both category rules book what arrives after you save them. Run on existing records, beside Save in each section, applies the saved rule to the records you already have:

1. Pick the category and click Save. The button acts on the saved rule and stays disabled until one is saved.
2. Click Run on existing records.
3. Leave All records on, or switch it off and choose a period: a month, a quarter, a year or a custom range.
4. Read the preview: how many records will change, and how many are left alone because someone categorised them by hand.
5. Click Re-book. A summary reports how many records changed.

Worth knowing:

• The preview is the truth. It is counted the same way as the run. Running twice is safe; the second run finds nothing to re-book.
• The run does overwrite a transaction's existing category, unlike the automatic rule, because by the time you set the rule the AI has usually categorised the history already. Hand-set categories are still never touched.
• Which date decides the period. Invoices use the date your workspace's default date basis names (under Settings → Ledger defaults; the fulfilment date unless you changed it), falling back to the issue date. Bank transactions use their booking date.
• Invoices already exported. If an invoice in range was already included in an RLB export, the dialog says so. It is still re-booked; check with the office before re-booking a closed period.
• There is no undo, and the run is capped at 2000 records; above that, narrow the period.

Fixed custom categories have the same button and the same dialog, with three differences. One run covers the partner's invoices and its bank transactions together. It replaces values the AI set and leaves hand-set values alone, line by line. And its button reads Apply, because a custom category is a label and not a booking.

Looking a partner up from an invoice or a transaction

On the Parties card of an invoice or a bank transaction, clicking the partner's tile (it shows Details) opens a read-only side panel: the tax numbers, the bank accounts and their confirmation, the company register result (where the workspace has it switched on) and the rules set on the partner. Client-side members, who cannot open the partner page, see the panel too. For members of the office, Edit on the partner page at the bottom of the panel opens this page in the same tab. Here Back to invoice or Back to transaction takes you back to where you came from, also after you switch tabs. If you opened the panel on Approvals or Matching, going back returns you there with the panel open.

Duplicate partners

AI Finance Team looks for verified partners that are probably the same business and lists them in a banner at the top of the Partners page, Possible duplicate partners detected. A pair can be suggested because of:

• the same tax number, or the same tax number written in different formats;
• the same name;
• a shared bank account;
• a shared payment ("Matched on a shared payment");
• the AI's judgement, with its confidence.

With more than five suggestions, Review opens the list. AI suggestions between 60% and 79% sit in a collapsed Low confidence section. Click a suggestion to open the comparison page: the two partners side by side with the signals that link them, and Merge these partners or Not a duplicate. A second banner suggests merging unverified names that look alike, with Merge into one? and Dismiss.

Consolidate partners runs the AI scan on demand. It only suggests: it never merges anything by itself, and its History shows past scans.

Merging partners

Merge from a suggestion, or open the partner and click Merge into…, search for the other partner by name or tax number and pick it. The dialog then asks which of the two to Keep: from the page, the partner you started from is marked Keep until you click the other one. Confirm with Merge; you land back on the Partners list.

When partner A is merged into partner B:

• every name, alternative name and name pattern linked to A moves to B, and A's name becomes an alternative name of B;
• B's empty tax number, country and address are filled in from A; if the two have different tax numbers, you are asked which to keep;
• A's bank accounts are not copied: check B's Recognition tab afterwards;
• A's fixed custom categories move to B; where both have one for the same list, B's stays;
• A is archived with a reference to B, and all pending duplicate suggestions involving A are dismissed.

A partner with a special role cannot be merged. The merge is one-way and cannot be undone.

Archiving

Archive a verified partner from its row in the list. Its linked names go back to unverified. You can restore the partner later (Show archived, then Restore), but the links do not come back on their own. Partners cannot be deleted.

Internal transfers between your own accounts

When money moves between two of your own bank accounts, the other party is your own company, not a supplier or customer. AI Finance Team links such a transaction to one of your companies instead of creating a junk partner:

• Detection is automatic and based on the account number. When the other account on a transaction is saved on one of your companies, the transaction is linked to that company. Between two accounts of the same company, it also gets the Internal transfer type and is marked No invoice needed. Keep each company's bank accounts current under Master data → Companies.
• The Own company badge. Wherever the partner appears, it shows a blue Own company badge instead of the verified pill.
• They stay out of the way. Own-company partners are not listed under Partners and are left out of the Partner Ledger. In the partner picker they sit in a pinned Own companies group at the top.
• Marking one by hand. If a transaction was recorded under an ordinary partner that is really one of your companies, open that partner, set Partner kind to One of our own companies and pick the company. The partner then disappears from the Partners list, and future transfers on that account are caught automatically.
• No second partner for the same company. If a partner already carries one of your companies' tax numbers (for example a supplier imported from Business Central), AI Finance Team marks that partner as the company's own partner instead of creating a new one, and it leaves the Partners list like any own-company partner. The partner's History tab shows when this happened. If you set Partner kind back to Ordinary partner, it is not marked again automatically.

This applies from then on. Existing transactions are not processed again; assign them from the transaction's partner picker if needed.

Invoices to private individuals

When you invoice a private individual, NAV reports no buyer at all: Hungarian law does not allow personal data to be reported, so NAV only says that the buyer is a private individual. Without a partner, those invoices had an empty partner in the RLB and Hessyn exports and never appeared in the Partner Ledger.

You fix this once, by nominating a partner they are all booked to:

• Set it up. Create or pick a partner (most offices call it Magánszemély), and under Partner kind choose Stands for a group that cannot be identified individually with the role Private person. Only one partner per workspace can hold the role.
• What changes. From then on, every NAV income invoice reported as issued to a private individual is booked to that partner, carries a name in the exports and appears in the Partner Ledger.
• It is recognised from NAV, not from a blank field. An invoice that simply arrives incomplete is never swept in.
• Payments are never matched on this partner. It stands for many people, so two invoices sharing it are not treated as related.
• It never learns from a match. No bank name or account number is remembered on it, because anything captured would be attributed to everyone booked there.

If you know who the buyer is, use a real partner. For a one-off sale of real value, such as a vehicle, create a normal partner. The private-person partner is for buyers you will never identify individually, such as everyday online orders. It applies to invoices arriving from the moment you set it.