Bulk Updating Vendors

Discovery lets you update many vendors at once with a CSV file instead of editing them one by one. You export your vendor data, edit it, and upload the revised file.

For more on bulk updates in general, see our Bulk Updates Overview.

You need to be a tenant Admin to use Bulk Imports.

Overview

Bulk updating vendors takes two parts:

  1. Export your existing vendor data from Discovery.
  2. Edit the file and upload it using the Bulk Imports tool.

Step 1: Export Vendors

  1. Go to Vendors.
  2. Use the filters if you only want to export certain vendors.
  3. Click Export to CSV. The export runs in the background.
  4. Open the user menu and select My Profile, then open the Data Exports tab. Download the file from there.

Archived vendors can't be bulk updated. If you include them in your export, those rows will fail with "Cannot find vendor with id".

Step 2: Edit the File

Open the exported file in Excel and make your changes.

How Discovery reads each cell:

In the cell What happens
A new value The field is updated.
Left blank The field is left unchanged. A blank cell never clears anything.
<null>   The field is cleared. Type it exactly, in lowercase with the angle brackets. Works for every field except name and the address fields, which can't be cleared.
The whole column removed That field is left unchanged for every vendor.

Only the id column is required. You can delete any column you aren't changing. Don't put values in columns that aren't listed below; any row that does is rejected.

Identifying the vendor

  • id* | The vendor's Discovery ID, as exported. Don't change it, because it's how Discovery finds which vendor to update.

Name and address

  • name | The vendor name. It must be unique among your vendors, and it can contain letters, numbers, spaces and common punctuation. Accented letters and characters such as $  , %   and "   aren't allowed.
  • address_street
  • address_city
  • address_state_code | A valid 2-letter state or province code, in capitals (for example TX   or ON  ).
  • address_postal_code | Must be a valid ZIP or postal code for the vendor's country.
  • address_country_code | US or CA, in capitals.

If you change only some address columns, Discovery keeps the vendor's current values for the others.

Contact details

  • general_email_address
  • general_phone_number
  • general_fax_phone_number
  • work_order_request_email_addresses
  • incident_notification_email_addresses
  • credit_request_email_addresses

Separate multiple addresses in the three list columns with a semicolon, for example [email protected];[email protected]  . Don't end the list with a semicolon. Entering a list replaces that vendor's whole list. Credit Request Email Addresses are stored for future Vendor Credit Requests; Discovery doesn't send email from that field yet.

Other fields

  • external_reference_id | Your own reference for the vendor. It must be unique among your vendors.
  • external_accounting_id | Links the vendor to a vendor in your accounting system. See Updating QuickBooks Vendor Links below.
  • sticky_notes
  • has_gps_tracking_on_trucks | 1 for yes, 0 for no. The export uses this format too.
  • legal_mailing_address
  • check_remittance_address
  • vendor_template_id | The ID of a vendor template. Get template IDs from Settings → Bulk Imports → Helper; the download includes a vendor_templates.csv   file. Each template can be linked to only one of your vendors. Setting or clearing a template also sets or clears the vendor's parent vendor company and Rover portal to match.

The external_accounting_id column connects each Discovery vendor to a vendor in your accounting system. A vendor invoice can't be posted while its vendor has no link. On QuickBooks Online, posting also fails if the linked vendor no longer exists in QuickBooks.

The value must match a vendor in Discovery's list of accounting vendors. Discovery checks that list, not QuickBooks itself. To get the right values:

  1. Go to Settings → Integration and open the Vendors tab.
  2. QuickBooks Online: click Refresh Vendors first, so vendors recently added in QuickBooks appear in Discovery. The button only appears while Discovery is connected to QuickBooks. The refresh runs in the background and can take a minute.
  3. Click Export to CSV, then download the file from My Profile → Data Exports.
  4. Copy each vendor's value from the External Accounting ID column (not the UUID column) into the matching vendor's external_accounting_id cell in your vendors file.

QuickBooks Desktop: accounting vendors are added by hand on the same Vendors tab. Their External Accounting ID is the vendor name exactly as it was entered there.

To remove a vendor's link, enter <null>  .

If a value doesn't match, that row fails with "The selected external accounting id is invalid."

Step 3: Save the File

  1. Name the file exactly vendors.csv. Any other name is rejected when you upload it, and Excel sometimes renames downloads to things like vendors (1).csv.
  2. Save it in CSV format. Bulk updates don't accept zip files.

Step 4: Upload the File

  1. Go to Settings → Bulk Imports.
  2. Click Create and select Bulk Upload.
  3. For Type, choose Replace Existing. (Create New is for adding new vendors; see Bulk Import Vendors.)
  4. Choose your vendors.csv file.
  5. Click Save. You'll see "Bulk Import has been queued for processing."

Checking the Results

Your import appears in the Bulk Imports list. When it finishes, the Errors column shows how many rows failed. Click (Download Errors) to get a file of the failed rows. Each failed row has an error_message column that starts with its row number in your spreadsheet, for example "Row 5: The selected external accounting id is invalid."

  • Rows with errors are skipped, and every other row is still processed. Fix the failed rows and upload just those rows again.
  • Rows where nothing changed are skipped.
  • "An exception occurred. Please contact support for assistance." usually means one of these:
    • a state or country code that isn't valid or isn't in capitals;
    • a vendor template that's already linked to another vendor.

Tips for Success

✅ Don't edit the id column.

✅ Leaving a cell blank keeps its current value. Use <null>   to clear it.

✅ Use 1 / 0 for has_gps_tracking_on_trucks, not Y/N.

✅ For QuickBooks links, copy the External Accounting ID column from Settings → Integration → Vendors → Export to CSV. On QuickBooks Online, run Refresh Vendors first.

✅ Use capital letters for state and country codes.

✅ Name the file vendors.csv, save it as CSV, and choose Replace Existing.

If you have additional questions or need more in depth information, please feel free to send us a message using the help beacon in the lower right-hand corner.

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