# Vendors, shares and recurring costs

> Which vendors' bills book to an initiative, exact name vs contains matching, sharing a vendor, suggestions from your books, recurring costs.
>
> Source: https://roiva.ai/docs/vendors-shares-and-recurring-costs
> Checked against the product on October 12, 2026

An initiative's costs are what you pay to run it. When those costs arrive as bills or card charges in a connected finance system (QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite or American Express statements), the initiative's vendors decide which of them book to it. When they're a fixed amount every period, a recurring cost records them for you.

#### The Vendors tab

Open the initiative's **Costs → Vendors**. Each row is a vendor named somewhere for this initiative:

- **Suggestions** — **From template** if the initiative's template names it, **Added here** if someone on the initiative did. A vendor named only here finds matching bills for suggestions, and books nothing by itself.
- **New Bills** — what books the vendor's new bills here: an allocation rule or a vendor mapping, with the platform and this initiative's share. Its chip says whether it does:
  - **Books here** — new bills book to this initiative at the share shown.
  - **Awaiting approval** — a draft allocation rule, which books nothing until an Owner, Admin or finance reviewer approves it.
  - **Not in effect** — an active rule whose dates don't include today.
  - **Replaced by rules** — your account books this platform through allocation rules, so this vendor mapping books nothing. See [Allocation rules and accounting periods](https://roiva.ai/docs/allocation-rules-and-accounting-periods).
- **Booked** — what the initiative's cost entries from this vendor add up to, and **Last Cost**, the latest one.

Anyone in the account can open the tab. Removing a vendor, or changing its share or matching, is in the ⋯ menu at the end of its row.

#### Adding a vendor and suggestions from your books

**Find Vendors in Your Books** opens the suggestions panel, a page of its own under the initiative's **Costs** tab. With a finance system connected, name a vendor at the bottom of that panel (under **Missing a vendor?** once the initiative has one): a **Vendor name**, how to **Match** it, and a **Cost type**, then **Add vendor**. Roiva looks for that vendor's bills and card charges from the last 12 months, as far back as the first sync reaches. The panel is also on the Costs tab while the initiative has no costs.

What it finds shows under **Suggested from your books**. Tick the rows this initiative pays for and choose **Add selected costs**:

- The bills become cost entries on the initiative, at the initiative's share of the vendor where it has one.
- For an Owner, Admin or finance reviewer, accepting also creates an allocation rule, so the vendor's bills dated from today book here as they sync. For anyone else, accepting adds the past bills only.
- If a rule already routes that vendor to another initiative, whoever can create the rule sees **Configure vendor routes**, which asks how this initiative joins it: **Even split**, **Custom %** (up to 100% in all; what's left books to no initiative), or **Skip (backfill only)**. Then choose **Apply with these routes**.

Suggestions are only as fresh as the last sync. An Owner or Admin can choose **Sync now** on the panel.

#### Exact name or contains

A vendor matches bills one of two ways:

- **Exact name** — the vendor's whole name, ignoring case, punctuation and endings like Inc or LLC. "Google" matches "Google LLC" but not "Google Cloud EMEA" or "Google Ads". A vendor you add matches this way unless you pick otherwise.
- **Contains** — any vendor name containing it. A template's vendors, and any vendor added before there was a choice, match this way.

To switch, use **Match exact name only** or **Match names containing …** in the row's menu. The initiative's own vendor and its vendor mappings change right away and apply from their next sync. Changing an allocation rule's matching takes an Owner, Admin or finance reviewer, and changes the rule for every initiative on it. A template's vendor keeps matching the way the template does.

#### Sharing a vendor between initiatives

A vendor's bills can pay for more than one thing: a Google Workspace bill that's a fifth this initiative's, say. Leave out the rest, because it serves other work. Choose **Set share** in the row's menu and give this initiative's percentage for each rule or mapping that books the vendor. What's left books to no initiative.

This matters when two initiatives both book one vendor. Two vendor mappings that match the same bill each book the whole bill, so it counts twice across your portfolio. Give each mapping a share, adding up to 100% or less, and each books its part. The connection's **Initiatives** tab warns when a bill has been booked in full for more than one initiative. An allocation rule's shares can't add up to more than 100%, so it never counts a bill twice.

Anyone can set a vendor mapping's share. Setting an allocation rule's share takes an Owner, Admin or finance reviewer.

**Apply this split to bills dated from** decides what happens to bills already booked:

- **Today** (the default) leaves every bill already booked as it is.
- **An earlier date** books the bills from then again at the new shares. Before anything changes, Roiva shows what moves between initiatives, and you confirm with **Re-split past bills**. Bills in a locked accounting period, or whose journal has been posted, stay as booked.

A mapping's new share applies at its connection's next sync.

#### Removing a vendor

**Remove vendor** stops the vendor suggesting bills here and, for an Owner, Admin or finance reviewer, takes the initiative off the vendor's allocation rule. A vendor mapping belongs to its connection, so the menu's **Edit mapping on …** is where you change it, and a template's vendor can't be removed. Costs already booked stay either way.

#### Card spend counted once

Card spend in your books counts whichever card paid it: QuickBooks purchases, Xero spend money and NetSuite credit card charges, whether a card feed posted them or someone entered them. Your books may carry the same American Express charges, from a card feed or entered by hand, so with its statements imported the same charge could arrive twice. For the dates a statement covers, Roiva counts a charge paid from the card's account in your books from the statement and leaves the books' copy out. Other cards, checks, cash and bills still count from the books. A QuickBooks bill paid by the card books only the part the card didn't pay. See [Importing American Express statements](https://roiva.ai/docs/importing-american-express-statements). The suggestions panel says when charges it found are counted under the card platform.

#### Recurring costs

A cost that's the same every period, such as a license or a support contract, doesn't need typing in each time. Open **Costs → Recurring Costs** and choose **New Recurring Cost**:

- **Cost type**, **Cost category** (CapEx or OpEx) and **Amount per period**
- **Repeats** — monthly, quarterly or annually. An OpEx cost repeating quarterly or annually is recorded a month at a time, each month an equal share of the period's amount, as the months it pays for pass. A schedule that starts or ends partway through a period spreads that period's amount over the months it covers. A CapEx cost is recorded whole for each period.
- **First period** and, for a cost that ends, **Last period**
- **Vendor**, carried onto every entry it records, so Roiva can set the schedule beside that vendor's bill in your books and list the pair if they look like the same money
- **Attributed To**, where the initiative has implementations
- **Notes**, copied onto every cost entry it records

Periods are calendar months, quarters or years, charged in full: a monthly cost starting mid-month records that whole month. Saving records every period from the first one up to the current one straight away, and Roiva adds each new period as it begins. **Generate now** in the row's menu catches up without waiting.

Editing the schedule leaves the entries it already recorded alone. A new amount applies to periods not yet recorded. Turn off **Active** to stop new periods without deleting anything, or **Delete** the schedule; the cost entries it recorded stay on the initiative either way. Anyone in the account can set up a recurring cost.

#### Locked accounting periods

Once someone locks an accounting period, the cost entries in it can't be changed or deleted, and no new cost is booked into it: a bill dated in it, or one a mapping now matches, books when the month is reopened. A recurring cost skips a period in a locked month and says so when it runs, and a re-split leaves those bills as booked. See [Allocation rules and accounting periods](https://roiva.ai/docs/allocation-rules-and-accounting-periods).

#### Next

- [Adding costs and value entries](https://roiva.ai/docs/adding-costs-and-value-entries) — recording a cost by hand, and importing a spreadsheet
- [Linking connections to initiatives](https://roiva.ai/docs/linking-connections-to-initiatives) — vendor mappings on a finance connection