Creating Vendors

Vendors (C3) are entities that your customers (C2) pay. They can be individuals or businesses.

Vendors can be created in the dashboard or with the create entity endpoint, and linked to a customer using the link payees endpoint.

They can also automatically be created when a customer adds a new vendor through the react component or embed.

Creating the Vendor Entity

Using the create entity endpoint, create a new entity, and make sure the following are set

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{
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  isPayee: true // This marks the entity as able to receive funds
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  isPayor: false // This marks the entity as unable to pay funds
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  isCustomer: false // This indicated that you don't have a direct relationship with this entity (aka, they are your customer's vendor)
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}

This will automatically add the vendor to the platform network.

Capturing Vendor Details

If you don’t have the vendor’s details, you can use the generate onboarding link endpoint to create a link that the vendor can use to provide their details. This link will be valid for 24 hours. You can also use the send onboarding email endpoint to send the link to the vendor via email. This link will be valid for 7 days, and will be emailed to the entity email.

You can configure what details are required for the vendor using the dashboard or api.

Adding the Vendor to the Payer as a Counterparty

Once the vendor entity is created, you need to link it to the payer.

You can link the vendor to any entity using the link payees endpoint. This will create a relationship between the two entities, and allow the payer to pay the vendor.

For example, if you have a payer Entity with id ent_8545a84e-a45f-41bf-bdf1-33b42a55812c, and a vendor Entity with id ent_21661ac1-a2a8-4465-a6c0-64474ba8181d, you can link them using the following request

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curl -X POST https://api.mercoa.com/entity/ent_8545a84e-a45f-41bf-bdf1-33b42a55812c/addPayees \
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     -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
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     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
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     -d '{
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  "payees": [
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    "ent_21661ac1-a2a8-4465-a6c0-64474ba8181d"
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  ],
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  "customizations": [
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    {
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      "counterpartyId": "ent_21661ac1-a2a8-4465-a6c0-64474ba8181d",
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      "accounts": [
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        {
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          "accountId": "85866843",
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          "postalCode": "94105",
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          "nameOnAccount": "John Doe"
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        }
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      ]
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    }
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  ]
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}'

Finding Counterparties

Once you have created and linked vendors to the payer, you can use the get counterparties endpoint to find the vendors linked to the payer.

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curl -G https://api.mercoa.com/entity/ent_8545a84e-a45f-41bf-bdf1-33b42a55812c/counterparties/payees \
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     -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
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     --data-urlencode name="Big Box" \
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     -d paymentMethods=true \
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     -d invoiceMetrics=true

Hiding / Archiving Counterparties

If you don’t want a counterparty to show up for an Entity in the counterparty search, you can hide them using the hide payee from search endpoint.

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curl -X POST https://api.mercoa.com/entity/ent_8545a84e-a45f-41bf-bdf1-33b42a55812c/hidePayees \
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     -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
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     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
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     -d '{
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  "payees": [
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    "ent_21661ac1-a2a8-4465-a6c0-64474ba8181d"
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  ]
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}'