Vendors

Vendors are an important part of materials management processing. To issue a purchase order or a payment to a vendor, that vendor first must reside in the NCAS vendor file. There are two types of vendors in the NCAS vendor file: trade vendors and non-trade vendors.
Trade vendors are defined as people or companies, outside the agency, who provide goods and services to your agency.

Trade vendors are vendors from whom an invoice is expected. In the NCAS, all agencies share the trade vendors which are established in the Statewide Trade Vendor File. The Statewide Trade Vendor File is a master file that contains essential information about all trade vendors (e.g., addresses, phone numbers, and vendor numbers). RFQs and purchase orders should be issued only to trade vendors, while payments may be made to both trade and non-trade vendors.

Non-trade vendors are defined as people or companies to whom your agency makes payments, but those payments are not in return for purchased goods or services. One example of a non-trade vendor is the agency's employees. These employee vendors are issued payments such as travel advances, reimbursements for travel and miscellaneous expenses. Other non-trade vendors might be scholarship recipients, welfare recipients, etc. Unlike trade vendors, non-trade vendors are unique to each agency, and so are not part of a common file.