What is Form 1099 and Why Does it Matter?
Form 1099 is used to report any non-employment income to the Internal Revenue Services (IRS). Similar to a W-2 which is used to report payments to employees, Form 1099 is used to report payments made to non-employees. Businesses are required to issue a 1099 form to a taxpayer who has received $600 or more in non-employment income during the tax year.
There are 2 types:
- Form 1099-NEC
- Form 1099-MISC
Previously, the IRS required nonprofits to report non-employment income using Form 1099-MISC. Now the IRS requires using Form 1099-NEC to report payments made to vendors, contractors, freelancers and/or anyone else who are not employees but are hired to complete a job. Form 1099-MISC is now used to only report truly miscellaneous income including rents, prizes and awards, medical and healthcare payments, crop insurance proceeds and etc.
1099 Reporting Process & NetSuite
NetSuite leverages a data driven approach to aggregate and extract eligible transaction detail for 1099 filing. NetSuite has several built-in Bundles that leverage saved searches to export the formatted data for a one-step upload to a related filing provider (e.g. Sovos, Yearli by Greatland and Track1099). Each contractor that requires a 1099 form must be identified as a 1099 contractor on their vendor record to generate accurate 1099 information.
(*A vendor is 1099 eligible only if it operates in the US or a US territory)
For vendor payments to accrue on the 1099 form, the following setup must be completed:
- Mark each contractor as 1099 eligible
- Associate an expense account with 1099 categories and select an expense account associated with a 1099 category when you add each expense to vendor bills
- Pay the vendor bills which converts the transaction to cash-basis
How to Set Up a Vendor as 1099 Eligible:
- Go to Lists > Relationships > Vendors
- Click Edit next to the vendor you want to make eligible
- NetSuite reports the total amount paid to these vendors which include payments made by paying existing bills or by writing checks
- On the vendor records, click Financial subtab
- Under Tax Information, click the 1099 Eligible box. Note: You should also populate the Tax ID as well as an Address for the vendor for filing.
- Click Save

How to Associate an Expense Account with 1099 Categories
- Navigate to Lists > Accounting > accounts
- To create a new expense account, click If not, click Edit next to the expense account you want to associate with a 1099 category.
- If creating a new account, select Expense/Other Expense in the Type field to enable the 1099 Category field
- In the 1099 Category field, select the type of vendor payments made with this account
- These categories correspond to the boxes on the 1099 form and cannot be added to/deleted
- Click Save

How to Use The 1099 Saved Searches to Report Vendor Payments:
- Go to Customization > SuiteBundler > Search & Install Bundles
- In the Keywords field, type “1099 Vendor Payment Report”
- Click the name of bundle for your 3rd party provider then click Install
- After the saved search is installed,
- Navigate to Reports > Saved Searches > 1099 Vendor Payment Report – Vendor Name > Edit
- Edit the search as needed. Typical updates include:
- Adding Company information
- Filtering out vendors who do not meet the minimum payments threshold set by the IRS.
- Export the search to a CSV/Excel file