For libraries that have a large number of vendors, it would be nice if it were possible to archive a vendor which is no longer active. Archiving a vendor would allow a library to retain historical information but hide them from the main list of vendors on the vendor page. There may need to be some safeguards for archiving. For example prevent archiving if the vendor has open baskets or unreceived orders.
It is possible to mark a vendor as inactive. However, when loading the vendor page after doing a search for all vendors, the page defaults to showing all vendors regardless of status. In order to hide the inactive vendors, the page has to load in order for the show active vendors link to display. If the Vendor page could be changed to a result list as described in bug 37674, then it would be possible to add an action called Archive with a separate tab. Archive is something more than Inactive because it implies this Vendor is no longer available. Inactive implies the Vendor MAY still be available but not currently in use.
Definitely a +1 We have a lot of one-time vendors that are actually individual donors (we use Vendors to track their donation) and would love to mark them as Archived and have them in a separate table. It would make our active vendors load so much faster.