You can use ISDATE() function to handle NULL values instead of using ISNULL
SELECT user_key User_id, update_date createDate
FROM accounting.dbo.user
WHERE user_key NOT IN
(
SELECT DISTINCT CONVERT(INT, RIGHT(vendor, LEN(vendor)-1)) user_key
FROM Prod.dbo.return_vendors)
AND ISDATE(update_date)=1
AND update_date <= GETDATE() - 1
)