Supplier Portal Rejection, Bank Change, and a Duplicate Supplier
A supplier administrator receives a portal request from Apex Components to change its remittance bank account from a US bank to a bank in another country. The supplier profile has two active sites: APEX-US and APEX-CA. A buyer who negotiates with Apex is assigned as the approver for the bank account change. At the same time, Apex submits a portal invoice for PO 45021. The portal rejects it with PO number not valid for supplier. The PO is approved and has an active receipt, but it was created for supplier Apex Component, singular, a duplicate record with the same tax registration number. The duplicate has no open invoices but has a site with a different bank account. The supplier also wants to add a new contact who can submit invoices. The close is in five days, and the buyer wants to resolve the invoice quickly by creating a new PO to the duplicate supplier.
1. Why is the portal invoice rejected, and what is the correct fix? Assess the buyer's proposal to create a new PO to the duplicate supplier.
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The portal user is associated with Apex Components, but PO 45021 belongs to the duplicate supplier record Apex Component. Supplier Portal validates that the PO supplier matches the supplier associated with the logged-in user, so the PO is not valid for that portal identity. The tax registration number confirms the two records are the same legal supplier, so this is a master-data defect, not a reason to create new purchasing activity.
Creating a new PO to the duplicate supplier would compound the problem: it would split spend, create parallel supplier histories, repeat the bank-account conflict, and make reconciliation harder. It might get one invoice paid, but it would worsen the duplicate and could create a second payment path to a less-controlled bank account.
The correct fix is to validate the tax registration and merge the duplicate supplier into the surviving record using Supplier Merge, moving sites, contacts, bank accounts, and open transactions as supported. Then confirm that PO 45021 and the portal user point to the same supplier and site. If the PO cannot be reassigned before close, document the exception and use the duplicate supplier's portal access only as a temporary controlled workaround, not as a reason to create a new PO. The merge should be completed before the next payment run.
2. Evaluate the bank account change approval. What control failure is present, and what should happen instead?
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The buyer who negotiates with the supplier should not approve the bank account change. That creates a segregation-of-duties conflict: the person with commercial influence over the supplier can also redirect remittance, which is a classic fraud path. A buyer could collude with a supplier contact or a fraudulent bank instruction to divert payment.
The change should route to a supplier administrator or treasury function independent of purchasing. Controls should include:
- A bank letter or equivalent verification on the supplier's letterhead, reviewed against known supplier details.
- A callback to a previously known supplier contact number, not a number supplied in the change request.
- Dual approval for bank account changes, especially cross-border accounts.
- Review of the tax registration and legal entity name against the bank account name.
- Audit logging of who requested, approved, and applied the change.
The buyer can confirm commercial context but should not be the approver. If the buyer already approved, the change should be re-reviewed by an independent approver before any payment is released.
3. How should the new contact and the duplicate supplier record be managed?
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Treat the contact request and the duplicate as separate master-data tasks with a common owner.
For the contact, assign the appropriate supplier portal role, such as invoicing or primary contact, only after verifying the contact's authority to submit invoices. The contact should be linked to the surviving supplier record, not to the duplicate.
For the duplicate, complete the merge into the surviving supplier after confirming the tax registration, legal name, and bank details. Move or close the duplicate site, preserve the audit trail, and confirm that no open invoices, payments, or POs remain attached to the duplicate. If the duplicate has a different bank account, do not merge blindly; resolve which bank account is legitimate through the independent bank-change control before moving it.
Communicate the surviving supplier record and portal access to the supplier. After the merge, re-submit the invoice against PO 45021 from the correct portal identity. This resolves the rejection without creating a new PO and keeps supplier spend, tax reporting, and payment routing consistent.