Ending a supplier relationship carelessly can leave access open, data with the supplier and payments still running. Offboarding gives you a controlled exit checklist that sends each step to the right team, optional exit forms for the supplier and your own sign-off, and a clean close that removes the supplier's bank details.
Where to find it
- The Offboarding tab shows every supplier being offboarded, and a picker Offboard a supplier… that lists your Active and Under review suppliers.
- On a supplier record, the Continuity, exit & offboarding section.
Offboarding is a module of its own, included in every plan. Admins can turn it on or off in Modules & forms.
Plan the exit before you need it
The Continuity, exit & offboarding section also holds your exit planning for every live supplier:
- Single-source dependency: whether you rely on this supplier alone.
- Fallback supplier: who you'd move to.
- Switching time & cost.
- Exit plan: how you'd leave.
For T1 Strategic suppliers, "Exit & continuity plan" is part of onboarding. See Supplier tiers.
How to start offboarding
- On the Offboarding tab, pick the supplier from Offboard a supplier…. The record opens at Continuity, exit & offboarding.
- Fill in the Reason for exit, Target exit date and Replacement supplier. If you leave the target date blank it's set to 60 days from today.
- Select Start offboarding.
- The supplier moves to the Offboarding stage and the exit checklist is created and sent to each team.
The exit checklist
Each step goes to the first person listed for that team on the Stakeholders page, due the stated number of days after you start.
| Step | Team | Due |
|---|---|---|
| Serve termination / non-renewal notice | Legal | 3 days |
| Migrate workloads to replacement supplier | Infrastructure | 30 days |
| Revoke system, VPN & datacentre access | Security | 35 days |
| Obtain data return & deletion certificate | Security | 40 days |
| Recover hardware & equipment | Infrastructure | 40 days |
| Close privacy record: DPA termination & sub-processor register | Privacy | 45 days |
| Final statement of account, credit notes & service credits | Finance | 45 days |
| Remove bank details & stop payment runs | Finance | 50 days |
| Block supplier in ERP & close open POs | Finance | 50 days |
| Lessons-learned review | Procurement | 55 days |
Complete each step as a task, with an outcome and evidence (see Tasks and notifications). Use the Notice of non-renewal or termination and Exit and data deletion request templates to help (see Templates; they're guides only and must be checked by your legal team).
The Offboarding page
Each supplier being offboarded has a card showing the reason, the replacement, an Exit date chip (red when it's passed, amber within 30 days), "X/Y steps" with a progress bar, and every step in due-date order with who has it and whether it's done, blocked or due.
Exit forms
Once a supplier is in Offboarding, its record shows Offboarding forms:
| Form | Completed by → approved by | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier exit confirmation | Supplier → Supplier manager | All your data returned; all copies deleted, including backups; date of deletion and certificate reference; final invoice submitted; no outstanding amounts, credits or liabilities; signed by name and job title. |
| Internal offboarding sign-off | Supplier manager → Business owner (SRO) | Access revoked and hardware recovered (Security); supplier blocked in ERP, open POs closed, bank details removed, final payment made or credit received (Finance); DPA terminated and sub-processor register updated; supplier manager sign-off. |
You can send the exit confirmation through the supplier portal. The invitation says your organisation "would like to close down our relationship with (supplier) in an orderly way."
How to close the supplier
- Finish every step in the exit checklist.
- Mark supplier offboarded then appears. Select it.
- The supplier moves to Offboarded. Its bank verification is cleared (penny test, call-back and last 4 digits) with the note "Bank details removed at offboarding".
Offboarded suppliers are kept with their full history for audit and appear under Offboarded. They don't count towards your plan's supplier limit, and purchase requests to them fail the "Approved supplier" check.
Good to know
- SupplierVault doesn't connect to your systems, so it can't revoke access or delete data itself. It makes sure the right person does it, and records the evidence.
- Offboarding is often triggered from a renewal decision to exit. See Contracts and renewals.