Supplier part number, MPN or GTIN: which to match on

The supplier part number is the supplier's name for its catalog entry; the manufacturer part number (MPN) is the manufacturer's name for the product; the GTIN (EAN or UPC) identifies one trade item at one pack level. To match a price list to your items, use a link you have already confirmed first, then the supplier's code, then MPN together with the manufacturer, then GTIN — and treat a description match only as a suggestion.

Price lists · 29 September 2026 · Proceny

Four identifiers, four owners

Identifier	Assigned by	Identifies	Changes when	Watch out for
Your item code	You	Your product record	You decide	Nobody outside knows it — you need a cross-reference
Supplier part number (vendor SKU)	The supplier or distributor	Its catalog entry, sometimes per pack	The supplier re-organises its catalog	Two distributors, two codes for one product
Manufacturer part number (MPN)	The manufacturer	The product model or variant	Rarely	Only unique with the manufacturer; separators and suffixes vary
GTIN (EAN-13, UPC-A, GTIN-14)	The brand owner, via GS1	One trade item at one pack level	A new pack or variant gets a new GTIN	A box of 10 and a single piece have different GTINs

The order to match a price list on

A link you confirmed before. Once you have agreed that the supplier's NW-60014 is your 100231, keep that pair in a cross-reference and use it first next month.
The supplier's own code, exactly, after trimming spaces and case. It is what the supplier invoices, and the most stable key within one supplier's lists.
Manufacturer and MPN together. Across suppliers, and when a supplier renumbers, the MPN is the bridge. On its own it is not unique: two manufacturers can use the same number for unrelated products.
GTIN at the right pack level. Exact and checkable, but often missing from B2B price lists, and a case GTIN will not match your piece GTIN.
Description. Useful to find a candidate for a person to confirm; never enough to accept a match on its own.

Why exact beats "close enough"

Part numbers of neighbouring products often differ by one character: 4410-12 and 4410-21 can be two sizes of the same fitting, …-BK and …-WH two colours. A fuzzy match that is right 95 % of the time is wrong on exactly the rows nobody checks. Treat near misses — a leading zero, one different character, separators in a different place — as suggestions to confirm, and remember the answer so the same question does not come back next month.

Supplier row	Your catalog	Verdict
`NW-60014`	`NW60014`	Same code, separators removed — safe after a check
`0012345`	`12345`	Leading zeros — confirm; Excel may have stripped them
`4410-12`	`4410-21`	Different product — do not link
`PX-200 (maker A)`	`PX-200 (maker B)`	Same MPN, different manufacturer — do not link

A cross-reference sheet

Keep one sheet, XRef, with the pairs you have confirmed: supplier, supplier code, manufacturer, MPN, your item code and the date confirmed. Build the MPN key with the manufacturer in it, and look up in order:

MPN key   =UPPER(TRIM(Manufacturer)) & "|" & UPPER(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(MPN," ",""),"-",""))
Your item =IFNA(XLOOKUP(SupplierCode, XRef[SupplierCode], XRef[Item]),
           IFNA(XLOOKUP(MPNKey, Items[MPNKey], Items[Item]),
           "No match — check"))

Add a column that says which rule matched (confirmed link, supplier code or MPN), so you can review the MPN matches before you rely on them, then add them to XRef.

Check a GTIN before you trust it

The last digit of a GTIN is a check digit, so a mistyped or truncated code can be caught. For a 13-digit EAN stored as text in A2:

Valid EAN-13?  =MOD(10-MOD(SUMPRODUCT(--MID(A2,SEQUENCE(12),1),{1;3;1;3;1;3;1;3;1;3;1;3}),10),10)=--RIGHT(A2)

For 5901234123457 the weighted sum of the first twelve digits is 83, so the check digit is 7 — the formula returns TRUE. Store GTINs as text: as numbers, Excel shows them as 5.90123E+12 and a 14-digit case code loses its leading zero.

When a supplier renumbers

A renumbered catalog shows up as many "dropped" items and as many "new" ones. Before you accept either, pair them: for each new code, look for a dropped code with the same manufacturer and MPN (or the same GTIN) and, if the price and pack also line up, record the new supplier code in XRef against your item. Ask the supplier for their old-to-new mapping; many have one. What is left after that is genuinely new or genuinely gone.