Suppliers: VIES and duplicates
Checking the VAT number, blocking duplicate records and merging duplicate purchases between twin suppliers.
Suppliers arrive from three directions: your own entries, the invoices read by Novadesko Intelligence and the invoices received via Peppol. Each route can create a duplicate record if the VAT number is written differently. This page describes the VIES check, blocking at entry time and dealing with duplicates that already exist.
The VIES check
In Create Supplier, entering the VAT Number starts the VIES lookup 0.8 seconds after typing, or immediately with Check. The status line at the top of the form shows VIES lookup in progress..., then Valid VAT number · Name or VAT number not found on VIES. When the number is valid, the empty fields are completed: Company name, Full address, Postal Code, City and Country. Nothing is overwritten.
On web.novadesko.com, the lookup combines VIES and CompanySearch; the Company information retrieved window offers Apply or Ignore. An incorrect format is flagged with "Invalid VAT format (e.g., BE0123456789)". If VIES does not respond, saving remains possible.
Duplicates at entry time
- Enter a VAT number that already belongs to a supplier.
- The message names the existing record and its supplier code.
- Save is disabled: the duplicate cannot be created.
- Open record takes you to the existing supplier.
The form compares the VAT number, the email and the name with existing records, after normalisation (spaces, dots and hyphens removed from the number; accents, punctuation and legal form removed from the name).
| Case | Message | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Same VAT number on a supplier | "A supplier with this VAT number already exists: AXA Belgium, S.A. (code AXA01227)" | Save disabled. Open record leads to the existing supplier. |
| Same email or similar name | "A supplier with this email address already exists: ..." or "... with a similar name already exists: ..." | Create anyway to confirm. |
| VAT number already registered as a customer | "This VAT number already exists as a customer: ..." | Create anyway: a company can be both a customer and a supplier. |
In the creation window opened from a purchase or from Novadesko Intelligence, the Use this supplier button takes the existing record into the document.
Twin suppliers from OCR or Peppol
The same supplier can exist twice when its VAT number was read as "TVABE0400673544" on a receipt, "BE 0400.673.544" on an invoice and "BE0400673544" in Peppol. Since 5 October 2026, the platform normalises the number and looks the supplier up by its digits before creating a new one, at entry time as well as on import. Twin records created before that date remain in place, however.
The "Possible duplicate?" button
In the Purchases list on web.novadesko.com, a flashing « Doublon possible ? » (possible duplicate?) badge appears on a document when a till receipt and an invoice seem to match: same supplier, twin records included, and same amount. This is the classic case of a photographed receipt followed by the invoice received by email or Peppol for the same purchase.
- Click « Doublon possible ? » (possible duplicate?): the window shows the two documents side by side.
- Compare the supplier, the date, the amount and the attached files.
- Confirm the merge. The document that is kept takes over the files, payments and bank links of the other, which goes to the bin with a note about its duplicate.
If one of the two documents already appears in a VAT return, that one is kept; if both do, the older one is kept and its declared fields are not changed.
Merging two supplier records themselves (rewiring all the purchases of a twin record to the other, then deleting the twin) has no button in the interface. If you find two records for the same company, open a ticket from Tickets stating both supplier codes: the Novadesko team performs the merge without losing any documents.
After a document merge, check the record that was kept in Suppliers: if the IBAN or email is missing, fill them in. This supplier's next purchases will no longer create a twin.