Filling Coverage Gaps and Merging Duplicate Vendors

What this article covers

Three separate, focused tools live inside the Vendors section for keeping your vendor stack accurate: filling an open slot when you spot a gap, folding two vendor rows together when the same real-world vendor ended up duplicated, and correcting a vendor's category when Verinode's catalog has it wrong. None of these write anything to your data without your say-so. Verinode surfaces the options, the duplicate, or the conflict; you decide what happens next.

This article is the deep reference for the controls themselves. For how coverage gaps are visualized on the Field and Radar views, see Explore tile: Coverage. For the vendor card these tools attach to, see Inside a vendor card: the detail view.

Solving a coverage gap

Where it opens from

Open Vendors from the sidebar, at /vendors. Inside the Coverage tab (reached from the Coverage tile in Explore, or the Coverage pill in the vendor card slider), every open category slot on the Field or Radar view is clickable. Tapping an open slot with no sourcing conversation already underway for it opens the gap exploration modal described here. If a sourcing conversation for that category is already in progress, tapping the slot instead takes you straight back into that conversation rather than reopening this modal.

The modal's title bar pairs the category name with "Solve This Gap," so it's always clear which slot you're looking at.

Zone 1: Context

At the top of the modal, a framed block states:

• The category name, with an Essential pill beside it when the category is one most peers in your archetype carry.
• A line stating what percentage of peers in your archetype cover this category (for example "68% of peers in your archetype cover this category"), followed by one of two lines depending on whether the category is essential: "Running without it is unusual for operations at your size" for essential categories, or "Optional, operators split on whether it's worth the spend" for supporting ones.

This framing is deliberately honest about how common the category is rather than pushing you toward adding anything.

Zone 2: Leading vendors in this category

Below the context block, a section headed Leading vendors in this category lists the top catalog options Verinode has for this category, ranked by Verinode Score. While the list is loading, it reads "Pulling Verinode's top options in this category…". If the catalog has no tracked vendors in this category yet, it reads:

No catalog options tracked yet in this category. Try searching below or plan with the agent.

Each option renders as a row with:

• The vendor's logo (or initials, if no logo resolves).
• The vendor's name, with its Verinode Score beside it when scored, formatted like "Verinode 7.5," plus a tier label ("Strong," "Solid," "Mixed," or "Weak") when one is available.
• A second line showing what peers pay for this vendor, formatted like "Peers pay ~$420/mo," with the number of operators behind that median appended when Verinode has one. If there's no peer spend figure yet, this line falls back to the vendor's pricing tier instead.
• An optional short note from Verinode's research, in copper text, explaining why this particular option is being surfaced.
• An I use this button on the right. Clicking it adds the vendor to your stack immediately with sensible defaults (no cost, seat count, or rating filled in yet) and shows "Adding…" while it saves.

"Something else": searching the catalog

Below the leading-vendors list sits a dashed button. Closed, it reads "I use something else, search the catalog." Clicking it expands into a search box with a Cancel link beside it. Type at least two characters and Verinode searches the catalog within this same category as you type, showing "Searching catalog…" while a request is in flight. No matches produces:

No matches. You can still add this via the full add-vendor form, or plan with the agent below.

Each matching result shows the vendor's logo, name, and a short description when one exists, with a Use button on the right (reading "Adding…" while it saves). Picking a search result adds it the same way as clicking "I use this" on a leading-vendor row.

If either path returns an error while adding the vendor, the modal shows the error text in place, and nothing is added until you retry.

Zone 3: Plan with the agent

At the bottom, a burgundy-tinted panel headed Not sure what you need? reads: "Talk through your workflow with the agent, they'll help you decide whether this gap is real and draft a sourcing brief if it is." The Plan with the agent button starts a guided conversation scoped to this specific category: what the category is for, what peers typically run, and what to look for, rather than dropping you into a generic chat. If you tap this for a category you've already started exploring, it resumes that same conversation instead of starting a second one. This routes through the same plan-and-decide machinery covered in The decision workspace.

After adding a vendor

Once a quick-add succeeds, the modal closes and the page refreshes so the new vendor shows up immediately on the Field, Radar, Stack, and Most Recent views without a manual reload.

Merging duplicate vendors

Why duplicates happen

The most common cause is timing: you add a vendor manually before Verinode has finished matching an incoming invoice or contract to the same vendor, so ingestion creates a second row for what is really one relationship. See Connecting your data and Forwarding documents for how documents flow in and get matched to vendors in the first place. Whatever the cause, once two rows exist for the same real vendor, merging them is a one-click fix instead of a support ticket.

Where to find it

Merging is available from a vendor's own card, next to the vendor's other identity actions: a Merge into another vendor control. The vendor whose card you're on is the one being folded away; you pick which of your other vendors it should merge into.

The flow

Opening it shows the modal titled Merge into another vendor, with the explanation: "Folding [this vendor] into another vendor moves every linked document, invoice, and signal to the survivor, then deletes this row. Pick the vendor that should remain."

1. 1Type at least two characters into the search box to search your own active vendors (the vendor you're merging away is excluded from the results, so you can't accidentally pick it).
2. 2While results load, the panel reads "Searching…". No matches shows "No matches in your vendor list. Try a shorter query."
3. 3Click a result to pick it as the survivor, the vendor that stays.
4. 4Review the confirmation panel: "Survivor: [name]," followed by "[current vendor]'s data will move into [survivor], and [current vendor] will be removed." A Change survivor link lets you pick a different one before committing.
5. 5Click Merge. The button reads "Merging…" while it runs.

What actually happens

The survivor keeps everything it already has: its own spend, billing details, satisfaction rating, and seat count are untouched. Every document, invoice, job, signal, decision, and subtask linked to the vendor being merged away is repointed onto the survivor, so none of that history is lost.

The one thing that does not carry over is the merged-away vendor's own relationship-level record: because an operator can only have one active relationship with a given vendor, that record is deleted rather than merged in, along with whatever spend, satisfaction rating, or seat count it held. This is why the vendor you pick as the survivor should be the more complete or more accurate of the two rows.

If the merge fails partway (for example a network error), the error message appears in the modal and nothing already moved needs to be redone: running the merge again on the same pair only repoints what's left.

Editing a vendor's category and suggesting a catalog correction

Where it lives

At the top of every vendor's card, the category eyebrow, the small label above the vendor's name, doubles as an inline editor. Clicking it (instead of just reading it) switches it into edit mode.

Reading the badge

In its normal state, the eyebrow shows your vendor's effective category: your own override if you've set one, or the catalog's category if you haven't. If you have overridden the category and your choice differs from what Verinode's catalog says, an amber pill appears beside it reading "Catalog: [catalog category name]," so the disagreement is visible at a glance rather than hidden.

Editing it

Click the eyebrow to open a dropdown. The first option is Use catalog category, which clears any override and reverts your view to whatever the catalog says. Below it, every category in Verinode's vendor taxonomy is listed in the platform's standard order. Pick one to set it as your override. While it saves, the row shows "Saving…"; a Cancel link exits without changing anything. If the save fails, the error appears inline (for example "Update failed.").

The override is per-operator and durable: it doesn't get reset by future catalog updates. It only affects how this vendor is labeled in your own account, it does not change which category Verinode's benchmarks pool the vendor into, since peer comparisons are always computed against the catalog category. That keeps cross-operator comparisons apples to apples even while your own label can differ.

Suggesting a catalog correction

When your override disagrees with the catalog, a Suggest catalog correction link appears next to the amber pill. Clicking it submits your suggested category to Verinode's research team for review, along with an automatically written note along the lines of "Operator categorizes as [your category], catalog says [catalog category]." While it's submitting, the link reads "Submitting…"; once it lands, it's replaced with "Suggestion submitted ✓".

Positioning

None of these three tools decide anything for you. The gap exploration modal surfaces what peers run and what the catalog offers so you can add a vendor in one tap, or think it through with the agent first. The merge tool exists because you, not an algorithm, are the best judge of when two rows are really one vendor. The category editor lets your own read of a vendor override the catalog's, while keeping the catalog itself, and the benchmarks built on it, intact for everyone else.

Related articles

• Explore tile: Coverage (Stack vs Archetype)
• Inside a vendor card: the detail view
• The vendor hero and Take Action row
• Vendor detail: alternatives and compare
• The Vendors section
• The Verinode Score on vendors and entities
• How benchmarks work
• Reading a benchmark
• The decision workspace
• Connecting your data
• Forwarding documents

Data sources