Vendors/Employees/Customers With the Same Name

Adding a letter to the end of a vendor name is a HORRIBLE attempt to fix this problem.

QB should be using separate files for vendors, employees, and/or customers.

This is just plain LAZY programming.

Come on QB!! You are better than this crap!

Neil C Hopkins  CPA

This is embarrassing. It made sense when in the on-premise product to have had so little foresight to have this issue. To still be seeing this issue in 2022 in the online product which already had the insight to know this was a nuisance from customers is just plan foolishness. 

It is nonsense. We buy from and sell to companies all the time, and every time it causes the synch between our ERP and Quickbooks to fail because Quickbooks apparently doesn't think we should be able to do that. The fix they recommend is ridiculous- then I'm sending out invoices that say "ABC Company- Customer" or checks that say "ABC Company- Vendor". Come on, Quickbooks, fix this.

This is a poor bandage solution and affects check payments to these vendors.

There are many occurrences where a company is both a vender and supplier to another and vise versa.

This is absolutely not a solution and I will not rest until this is fixed. 

Hi there, @owneratvinnysgreen. 

I understand how you wanted to set up the same vendors, employees and customers who are the same person. Right now, the workaround available is the one provided by my colleague Rubielyn_J above.

We recognize that each company has unique needs, and I can see how the feature you're looking for would benefit and empower your business. In the meantime, I recommend sending this request straight to our product engineers through feedback. 

To send feedback, here's how:

1. Go to the Help menu at the top.
2. Select Send Feedback Online.
3. Click Product Suggestion.
4. Choose a feedback type and product area on the QuickBooks Feedback window. 
5. Enter your feedback, name, and email address (optional).
6. Once done, click on the Send Feedback button.

You can also visit this page or the What's New section on your QBDT to get updates on our latest news about product improvements. 

As always, feel free to check out our help articles in case you need tips and related links while working with QuickBooks in the future.

Let me know if you have other concerns while managing QuickBooks. I'll get back to you right away. Have a great day.

How about instead of asking customers to jump through more hoops to improve YOUR software, YOU talk to the bloody engineers and tell them how stupid this design is and to learn how to design a database properly for sharing resources. This has been an issue for literally decades - to expect us to go and explain it to them and fill out more forms is positively asinine. 

As usual, QB passes the buck instead of actually doing anything about this issue that they have been aware of since they launched QB Online. This is an amazingly easy coding fix, but obviously, you are a bot, and QB doesn't have any customer service. I can't believe a multi-billion dollar company with 100 million users actually is recommending that I spell the name of my vendor wrong, which is then printed on their check, as a solution to their problem. Why don't you take a couple hundred dollars of the 9.7 BILLION! we (QB Online customers) paid you last year and fix the D@MN problem!

Go to your Vendors Info

On the Section "Name and Contact"  you will find another sub-section named "Name to print on checks"

--You can edit this section to clear the character you had to add, and it wont appear on the check !

Not all differences are read by QB as a difference.

I am using Quickbooks Enterprise 23.0

If you have either a customer or vendor record with a comma in it the results may be unpredictable.
I have found out that QB will match City of Los Angeles with Los Angeles, City of.
It is not case sensitive either.
If either permutation of the name exists in either Customers or Vendors, you will not be able to create the other version of it.
I have also found that if you have City of Santaana in QB, and try to add Santa Ana, City of, this will also match and therefore refuse to create the new one even though they are not character for character matches.

What about invoices? it's ridiculous either way. Who ever is presenting this as a product to professionals should be embarrassed

All I can say about this ridiculous system and each fault I come across in every single section of QBO, is that this should make you all embarrassed. Someone needs to start posting this rubbish on social media as a meme. Sage users must be laughing their asses off.

I just hired second employee with exact tame first and last name.  I cannot attach just a letter to the name one of them as that would be their legal name for the purpose of the the tax returns etc.

Any solution?

Thanks for chiming in the thread, Damir.

I have another way how you can handle an employee with the same name in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) for Mac. 

Instead of adding a letter to their first name, I suggest adding a middle initial in their name for legal and tax return purposes.

Also, you can always visit our QBDT for Mac Help articles page to seek sources to guide you in performing any QuickBooks tasks. Simply type a keyword of your concern on the search field or open any of the categories displayed. 

I'm always here in the Community if you have further concerns about QBDT for Mac. Just post a comment below to notify me of your response. Have a good one. 

It looks so unproffesional to add a character on to their name. We have vendors that we also service so ya please find a way to have a vendor and a customer with the same name!!!!!!

Hello, sarakoehn.

I can see how efficient it could be if you can add the same customer and vendor name.

While this option is unavailable in QuickBooks Online, I suggest sharing this product suggestion with our developer's team. We want to ensure that we provide a more user-friendly interface. Thus, we will review your feedback, and we'll collate ideas from other customers.

You can share your ideas through our Feedback page. Here's how:

1. Choose QuickBooks, then select Preferences.
2. Select Feedback.
3. Click the Enable sending usage data to Intuit box.
4. Close the Preferences window.

As of now, you'll have to include special characters or letters to differentiate the two names.

Furthermore, you can check these articles on how to manage your customers and vendor lists':

• Add a customer, employee, or vendor in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac
• Add a Sales Rep in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac

I'm always around whenever you have concerns about your QuickBooks Desktop for Mac. I've got your back!

adding new letters to a correct customer name is a terrible solution.  Honestly, fix this issue.

I used to be able to add something like {EE} to the end of an employee name and Quickbooks would not print the {EE} on the payroll tax forms, reports, etc.  This allowed me to differentiate between employees and vendors or customers without messing up payroll forms, etc.  Is this no longer the case?

Thanks for joining the Community and getting involved with this thread, ABray.

I can certainly understand how an ability to add something like (EE) to the end of employee names so they don't print on payroll tax forms, reports, or etc. could be useful and have submitted a suggestion about it as of today.

You can submit your own feature requests while using QuickBooks.

Here's how:

1. In the top menu bar, go to Help, Send Feedback Online, then Product Suggestion....
   
   
    
2. Choose a Type of Feedback and Product Area (optional) from your available drop-down menus.
   
   
    
3. Enter any suggestions/feedback in the Here is my suggestion: field.
   
   
    
4. If you'd like, include your name/email in the My name is: (optional) and My e-mail address is: (optional) fields.
   
   
    
5. Select Send Feedback.
   
   

Your feedback's definitely valuable to Intuit. It will be reviewed by our Product Development team and considered in future updates. You can stay up-to-date with the latest news about your product by reviewing Intuit's Product Updates webpage.

You also have the option of checking our QuickBooks App Store for apps which may be able to help you achieve what you're looking to do.

As a workaround, for the time being, you can use the steps from Rubielyn_J's post to create customer profiles with special distinctions to their names.

If there's any additional questions, I'm just a post away. Have a wonderful Wednesday!

That sux!  We have Customers that are also employees...  Fix this please

Hi there.

Currently, the only way to give distinction to your customers and employees that have the same name is to put (EE) on the last name of the employee. I know how important this feature is on your end without adding something to the name.

With that in mind, let's submit direct feedback to our Product Developer. They will be able to read your suggestion and might added to our future product updates. 

You can stay up-to-date with the latest news about your product by reviewing Intuit's Product Updates webpage.

For additional questions about managing your customer and employee lists, click the Reply button below. I'll be willing to help. Keep safe.