Working with Master Data

Master Data reads your supplier, customer and employee records and compares them with each other. It works from the lists in your Data Room and the rows your Connections bring in. It reports every record that is missing something, repeats another record, or matches one of your own people. It reports a count of records rather than a sum of money, and this page is how to work with it from day to day.

What to put in the Data Room

Two lists are sufficient to begin. Add your supplier list and your customer list, exported from your accounting system as PDFs. They are not agreements or invoices, so they sit beside Contracts and Agreements and Invoices as their own kind. The module's Data Room tab shows them under Master records. Those two lists produce the first findings: two records that share a tax id, a bank account, or a name and address that closely match, and any record with something missing.

Add your employee list, with addresses and payment details, next. It lets the module check that no supplier shares a bank account, address, phone or tax id with one of your people. A list from a second system lets the cross-reference check confirm that the same supplier carries the same id in both. Payment rows a Connection brings in let the module see a dormant supplier, one with no activity for twelve months, being paid again.

Add lists with Add to Data Room, as PDFs, or let a Connection bring them in. A Xero Connection brings in your suppliers and customers along with its rows, and a list a Connection brings in is examined the same way as one you added. Open the module's Data Room tab to see which lists it has drawn on and to link one it has not used yet. The Data Room explains where documents live and what each kind is for.

When it asks you a question

Master Data asks you nothing when you add it. It asks a question only when a check needs the answer, and until then it uses a sensible default and names it in the finding, so you can correct it when it matters. Four questions can arise: what every supplier record must have on file, after how many days without activity a supplier counts as dormant, whether anyone on your team is also a supplier on purpose, and whether the same supplier carries different ids in two of your systems.

A question arrives as a needs-information finding in the Findings list, and as a card in Ask Ressura. Your answer becomes an entry in your Organisational context, with your name and the date on it, and the check runs again automatically. What a record must have, and how many days make a supplier dormant, apply to every record this module checks. A person you name as a known supplier, or a pair of ids you match, applies to that one record only.

How to read a finding

The module's Overview shows Duplicates and overlaps, a count of the records that are the same thing twice and of the suppliers that match an employee. It is a count rather than money, so it sits beside your company's money total rather than inside it. The list of Master records sits beneath it, each typed as a supplier, a customer or an employee, with its duplicates, its overlaps and whether it is complete. Its Findings tab lists every finding: the record, the Control that produced it, its kind, the amount where a finding has one, the confidence, its disposition and the date. Choose Review finding to open one.

An exception shows two records side by side and names what matches: a tax id, a bank account, a phone, or a name and address that closely agree. For a record that is not complete, it names what is missing, such as a supplier with no tax id on file. Its provenance shows each record, the system or list it came from and the date it last changed, so you can compare the two records yourself. When a finding leans on a default rather than a value you gave, it says so explicitly.

A needs-information finding names the answer that would let a check finish: which of two records to keep, whether a match with one of your people is known, or a missing tax id. It never blocks the other checks. A fraud-risk finding comes from Fraud Watch and links the findings behind it; Master Data names matches, never motives. The Checks tab shows each of the seven Controls with its pass, exception and needs-information counts for the period.

How to disposition a finding

You answer a finding in one of three ways, and each answer is recorded with your name and the date. Accept an exception when the two records really are one supplier, and add a note if you like. You say which record to keep, the module proposes the merge as a card, and nothing changes until you confirm it; it never merges records on its own. Reject it with the reason when both records are right as they are, such as two customers with near-matching names that are separate companies you invoice separately. The reason becomes a context entry, scoped to this finding, this record, this module or the whole company, so the same point is never raised twice. Answer a needs-information finding by typing the answer, such as the name of a person who is a supplier on purpose, and the check runs again.

A record's own page, under Master records, gathers its findings, its documents and its context entries in one place. Where the record is a person, members see its id, and admins and the Owner see the name. Findings and Dispositions has the rules every module shares, including the two-person rule for rejecting a fraud-risk finding.

What it costs

Running its checks, opening a finding and dispositioning one cost nothing, and checking the same documents again is free.

This page is the how-to. The Master Data page says why it exists and what it checks.