User has independent specialist consultants who work under their contracts or sometimes directly for the client. How should they be set up in Core > Contacts? They do not seem to fall into the standard categories of employees or vendors.

In Core, you can set up these types of consultants as vendors in the Contacts > Vendors screen. We have three types of vendor categories there:

• Vendors (typical outside suppliers)
• Contract Employees (1099 employees)
• Outside Consultants (project-based hired consultants)

This is an important attribute that each vendor record has. All these contacts are connected to our accounting records whether we classify them as a vendor or an employee. If they are 1099 contract employees, they can work inside or outside the company, but are tracked as a vendor. If they get W2, we track them as an employee (even if they work on a few contracted projects each year). Vendors are typical outside suppliers of goods or services while outside consultants are hired on project-basis.

In your case, you should set them up as a vendor type: Outside Consultant or Contract Employee. Check the Core Help for more.