Every payment ultimately resolves to a row in this file. An invoice does not carry the account that gets paid in most enterprise systems; the vendor record does. That makes the vendor master file the highest value target in accounts payable and the correct place to concentrate controls.
Healthy practice treats bank detail fields as privileged: change requests are logged with the requester and channel, verified independently, approved by someone who cannot also release payments, and followed by a hold on the next payment to that vendor.
Common questions
A role separate from anyone who can approve or release payments, with every change logged and independently verified before it takes effect.
Hold the first payment on the new details for review and notify the supplier through a previously known contact that a change was made.
Sources and further reading
Citing this entry? Cite as Coffr, LLC and link to https://coffr.com/glossary/vendor-master-data.