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Stakeholders and document templates

Add the people who own each step, route tasks to the right team, hand over work, and fill in contract and letter templates from a supplier record.

Two pages under Operations in the menu support everyday work. Stakeholders is the list of people who own each step: it decides who receives automatic tasks. Templates holds contracts, sourcing documents and supplier letters that fill themselves in from a supplier's record, ready to download as a Word document.

Stakeholders

A stakeholder is anyone who does work in your supplier process: Procurement, Legal, Security, Privacy, Finance, IT, an executive sponsor and so on. Stakeholders don't need a SupplierVault login to be given tasks. When someone does sign in, SupplierVault links them to their stakeholder entry by matching their sign-in email address, so "their" tasks, notifications and calendar feed work.

How to add a stakeholder

  1. Go to Stakeholders and find the "Add stakeholder" form.
  2. Enter their Name.
  3. Choose a Team: Procurement, Supplier management, Legal, Security, Privacy, Finance, IT, Infrastructure, Facilities, HR, Executive, or a team you've added. Choose "+ Add a team…" to create a new one.
  4. Enter their "Email (for reminders)". Use their work email: it's what links them to their sign-in, and what "Send reminder" on a task uses.
  5. Optionally enter a Role, for example "Data Protection Officer", and add them.

If there are no stakeholders yet you'll see "Add the people who own each step: Procurement, Legal, Security, Privacy, Finance, Infrastructure and an exec sponsor." You can also add people in the setup guide. See Set up SupplierVault.

What each row shows

  • their team, name and role
  • "n open" and "n overdue" tasks
  • "View tasks": opens the Tasks page filtered to them
  • "Hand over work": see below
  • "Cover while away" (or "Change cover"): hands the person's sign-offs (purchase requests, supplier go-live and bank detail releases) to a colleague for set dates. You can set it for yourself; admins can set it for anyone. The row then shows "Away until date: name signs off", and the colleague's row shows "Covering for name". See Cover while you're away.
  • "Remove": removes them after you confirm

Who gets automatic tasks

Each automatic task belongs to a team (for example "Penny test & call-back verification" belongs to Finance). It's assigned to the first person added to that team. The page hint says "first person listed", but the list is sorted by team and then name, so the person who receives tasks is actually the one who was added first, which may not be the one shown at the top.

To control exactly who receives a team's work, add the main owner for each team first. If different people cover different areas (for example a separate Finance contact for Facilities), set this in Settings › "Who reviews what, by area": pick a named person for each team and area, or leave "Team default". This applies to new tasks only. You can always change the assignee on any task.

How to hand over work

When someone leaves or changes role, move everything to a colleague in one go.

  1. On their row select "Hand over work". It tells you how many open tasks and suppliers will move.
  2. Choose who takes over in "Choose who takes over".
  3. Select "Hand over". All their open tasks are reassigned, and every supplier they manage moves to the new person. You'll see "Handed over n tasks and m suppliers", and the change is recorded in the audit trail.

Completed tasks keep the original person's name, so your history stays accurate. Suppliers already offboarded aren't moved. Hand over work before removing someone, so nothing is left unassigned.

Set the Area filter to "All areas" before handing over. Only tasks in the area you're viewing are moved, though all of the person's suppliers are.
Stakeholders are not the same as users. Removing a stakeholder doesn't stop them signing in, and giving someone a login doesn't add them as a stakeholder. Logins are managed by an admin in the account panel's Team tab. See Invite your team.

Document templates

The Templates page holds 16 standard documents, grouped as follows, plus any your organisation creates.

GroupTemplates
ContractsMaster Services Agreement (MSA); Statement of Work (SOW); Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA); Data Processing Agreement (DPA); Contract variation / change request; AI clauses checklist
SourcingRequest for Information (RFI); Request for Proposal (RFP); Award letter; Regret letter
Supplier lettersSupplier welcome and onboarding letter; Notice of non-renewal or termination; Renewal negotiation letter; Performance improvement notice; Exit and data deletion request
GovernanceQuarterly business review agenda
Your templatesTemplates you've created, plus "Create a template"
Guides only. Every template must be fully completed and checked by your legal team before it's used. They are not legal advice. Once your legal team approves the wording, save it as your company version so everyone uses the approved text.

How to fill in and download a template

  1. Open a template from the Templates page, or select "Templates" at the top of a supplier record to arrive with that supplier already chosen.
  2. In "Fill in from supplier", choose the supplier, or "No supplier: leave blanks to fill in".
  3. Read through and edit the wording directly on the page. Anything still in [square brackets] needs filling in by you.
  4. Select "Download Word" for a .docx you can finish in Word, or "Download web page / PDF" to save a web page you can print to PDF.

Templates carry your logo and brand colour, set in the setup guide. See Settings.

Where the filled-in details come from

FieldFilled from
Your organisation, address, accounts payable emailOrganisation details from the setup guide and Settings
Today's dateThe date you open it
Supplier name, legal name, address, company registration numberThe supplier record and its set-up details
Supplier contact and supplier manager (owner)People on the supplier record
Contract start, end, notice days and notice-by date"Contract, notice & renewal" on the record
Contract value, payment terms and scopeContract and finance details on the record

If a detail is missing on the record, the template leaves a blank for you to complete. It's quicker to add the detail to the supplier record first, so it's right everywhere.

Saving your own wording

  • "Save wording as company version" replaces the standard wording for everyone in your organisation. The card is then marked "your version". Choose "No supplier" first, so the saved text keeps its fill-in fields rather than one supplier's details.
  • "Restore standard wording" goes back to the original.
  • "Create a template" (under Your templates) starts from a blank page, for example your own purchase order terms. Write your text using fill-in fields such as {{supplier}}, {{org}} and {{today}} (the full list is shown beside the editor), give it a name, and select "Save as new template". It's marked "custom".

Saving and creating templates is available to admins and editors; view-only users can fill in and download.

Good to know

  • SupplierVault doesn't send these documents to anyone. You download them and send them yourself, or attach a finished, signed copy to the supplier's Documents. To get a document signed online, use e-signatures (Professional plan and above). See E-signatures.
  • At the top of a supplier record, Templates opens Templates for that supplier, and Documents takes you to the supplier's stored files on its Documents and history tab.
  • Onboarding forms (the questions you ask suppliers) are different from templates and are managed in Modules and forms.
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