Routable’s Vendor Compliance Checks help you verify your vendors and stay compliant with tax and anti-money laundering regulations, all from within Routable.
What are the benefits?
Vendor Compliance Checks help you confirm you’re working with verified legal entities, avoid risky businesses, and ensure accurate tax information. By managing compliance directly in Routable, you can reduce costs, save time, and improve efficiency without relying on third-party services.
Where can I set this up?
Open the user menu at the lower-left corner of the dashboard > click Account Settings > in the Financial section, open Payables and Vendors > Go to the Vendor Compliance Checks section at the bottom of the page.
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Feature Overview
Configure Vendor Compliance Checks directly in your account settings:
(1) Choose to run checks on every vendor OR only on those that exceed a set annual payment threshold.
Note: A vendor must provide tax information in order for compliance checks to run.
(2) Choose to automatically hold payments if a vendor has a TIN mismatch or appears on a watchlist, helping you maintain control and reduce risk without manual intervention.
(3) Determine ongoing enrollment for subsequent years:
- Continuous enrollment: Continue screening enrolled vendors for another year, even if they haven't met the threshold.
- Unenroll each vendor after 1 year: Checks will resume automatically only once the threshold is met again.
(4) A dedicated Compliance module makes managing compliance issues, enrollment, and compliance monitoring easy
(5) You can also see the compliance status of your vendors in the Tax Tools table.
Compliance Statuses
Every vendor will display a compliance status in your Tax Tools table.
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Verified– The vendor has passed all compliance checks. -
Review required– The vendor has failed one or more compliance checks. -
Queued– Compliance checks are pending. This should be a temporary status. -
Not evaluated– No checks have been run, and the vendor is not queued to be evaluated. -
Can’t verify– An issue occurred with the provider or Routable. This should almost never happen. -
Manually verified– The vendor was manually verified by a team member, overriding a "Review required" status. This releases any pending payment holds and prevents subsequent payments from being held due to the initial flag. -
Outdated– This status occurs when the vendor’s legal name changes. Because the legal entity information has changed, the previous compliance verdict is no longer valid. A new tax form must be provided so compliance checks can be re-run.
API Documentation
FAQ
What happens if a vendor's TIN/Legal Name fails verification?
When a TIN/Legal Name mismatch occurs, the vendor's status will be set to "Review required." If your compliance settings are configured to automatically hold payments, any payments in flight to that vendor will be held.
You have two options to resolve the failed check and release the payment holds:
- Correct the Vendor Data: Ask the vendor to re-submit their tax information (e.g., W-9) with the correct Legal Name/TIN combination. Once the updated form is provided and verified, the status will move to "Verified," and any holds will be automatically released.
- Manually Dismiss the Check: A team member with appropriate permissions can dismiss the check. This action overrides the compliance flag, releases any pending holds, and moves the vendor's status to "Dismissed." This option is typically used after an external manual verification or when a critical payment must be released immediately.
What happens if a vendor appears on a watchlist?
When a vendor's legal name appears on a watchlist, their status will be set to "Review required." If your compliance settings are configured to automatically hold payments, any payments in flight to that vendor will be held.
Your team must conduct an internal review and choose one of two paths to resolve the flag:
- Release Payments and Continue (Dismiss): If your internal review determines the vendor is a false positive (i.e., not the sanctioned party) or a critical payment must be released immediately, a team member with appropriate permissions must Manually Dismiss the Check. This action overrides the compliance flag, releases any pending holds, and moves the vendor's status to "Dismissed."
- Stop Payments (Archive/Remove): If your internal review determines the vendor is a true match to a prohibited party and is too risky to transact with, you should Archive the vendor from Routable immediately. This ensures all payment holds remain in place and prevents any future payments from being initiated.
What specifically is meant by "watchlist"?
The watchlist check screens vendors' legal names against more than 6,000 global watchlists to ensure compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorist Financing (CTF) regulations. This includes, but is not limited to, lists from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the UN, and the EU. As configured in your settings, a watchlist hit will automatically trigger a payment hold to prevent a prohibited transaction.
I have a payment stuck in a compliance hold, but I want to send it to the vendor. How do I do that?
To release a payment that is stuck in a compliance hold, a team member with appropriate permissions must manually dismiss the compliance check failure.
This action:
- Overrides the existing compliance flag (e.g., TIN mismatch or watchlist hit).
- Immediately releases the held payment.
- Moves the vendor's status to "Dismissed," ensuring future payments to this vendor are not automatically held.
This is typically done after a manual verification that the vendor is safe, or when a critical payment needs to be released immediately.
If I change the annual payment threshold, are all my existing vendors re-evaluated?
No. Changing the payment threshold only affects new vendors or existing vendors when they first cross the new threshold. Existing vendors that have already been evaluated will not be retroactively re-checked based on the threshold change.