The supplier portal lets suppliers fill in their own onboarding and exit forms, so your team doesn't have to chase and re-key answers. You send a secure personal link; the supplier answers, uploads certificates and signs; and everything lands straight on the supplier record with your team told what came in. Suppliers don't need an account, but they can create a free supplier account to see every customer's requests in one place.
Which forms go to the supplier
A form goes through the portal when it's switched on, it's required for that supplier, and it has at least one section that the supplier completes. The supplier only ever sees their own sections, never your internal ones.
- Onboarding: the supplier set-up form, the penny test acknowledgement, the security questionnaire, the code of conduct, the AI use assessment and any compliance packs with supplier sections.
- Offboarding: the supplier exit confirmation.
- Never sent: the intake request, third-party risk request, internal privacy assessment and conflict-of-interest declaration, which are internal only.
On the supplier record, the portal block says "Sends N form(s) to the supplier" and lists them.
How to send a secure link
- Open the supplier record and find Supplier portal · onboarding (or offboarding).
- Select Send secure link to supplier.
- Choose the Supplier contact, or Someone else and enter their Name and Email.
- Choose how long the Link works for: 14, 30 (the default), 60 or 90 days.
- Select Create secure link.
- Copy the link straight away with Copy link, or use Copy email or Open in email to send a ready-written email from your own mailbox.
The link is personal to that contact. It stops working when it expires or you turn it off. The portal status changes to Invited.
Managing links
Each link shows its status: Not opened yet, Opened (with the date), Completed, Expired or Turned off, plus when it was sent, when it works until and the last visit. To stop a link, select Turn off this link and then click again to confirm.
If a supplier's link has expired or been turned off, they'll see a message asking them to contact you for a new one. A link that has already been completed can still be opened to see the submission.
What the supplier sees
- Your logo and name, "Supplier portal", "Saved as you go" and their email.
- A heading such as "New supplier set-up for (your organisation)", the number of sections and a progress bar: "X% complete · N of M sections done".
- A list of steps, one per form, each showing how many required questions are answered, and a final Review and submit step. On a phone this is a "Section N of M" drop-down.
- A card with their contact at your organisation (the supplier manager), and a reminder that answers go only to you and that you never ask for full bank account numbers.
- "Before you start" guidance on what they'll need: registration and VAT numbers, the last 4 digits of their bank account, and insurance or certification documents.
Answers save as they go, so they can stop and come back with the same link. Questions marked * are required.
Not applicable answers
Suppliers can select Not applicable on a question that doesn't apply to them and, if they like, say why (up to 300 characters). A not applicable answer counts as answered. They can undo it with Answer this question.
Not applicable isn't offered on tick boxes and signatures, or on required questions in the set-up form, penny test and code of conduct.
On the supplier record your team sees these answers tagged "Supplier: not applicable", with the reason.
Pointing to their trust centre
Larger suppliers often publish security and compliance documents on a trust centre or document portal rather than filling in questionnaires. On a section they can select We publish this on our trust centre and give:
- Link to your trust centre or document portal (must start with https://).
- How do we get access? Anyone with the link; request access on the page; sign an NDA first; they'll send a login; or something else.
- What's there, and anything we should know.
After Save link, that section is marked "Covered by your trust centre" and its questions become optional. This is available on the security questionnaire, AI use assessment, compliance packs and the exit confirmation, but not on the set-up form, penny test, code of conduct, conflict of interest or intake forms.
When the supplier submits, your team gets a task "Check (supplier)'s trust centre: N section(s) answered by link", and the record shows "Covered by the supplier's trust centre" cards with the link and access notes.
Uploading documents
- Certificate and expiry-date questions (for example insurance or ISO certificates) have Upload certificate.
- Every section has Supporting documents (optional) and Add a document.
- Files can be PDFs, images (including iPhone photos), Word, Excel, PowerPoint, CSV, text or OpenDocument files, up to 10 MB each and 60 documents per supplier.
- Each upload is filed on the supplier record automatically, labelled as an insurance certificate, security certificate, policy, certificate or licence, or other, with the expiry date copied from the related answer.
- The supplier sees "Uploaded. (Your organisation) has been told." They can Remove their own upload until they submit.
Their team
In Your team, the supplier can add colleagues (name, email, role and portal access), choose the main contact and give or remove portal access. Former contacts are kept for the audit trail. They're encouraged to have at least two people with access.
Review, sign and submit
- The Review and submit step shows each form's answered count, how many documents were uploaded, how many questions are not applicable and how many sections are covered by their trust centre.
- Anything required that's missing is listed with Go to it.
- When everything is complete, they type their full name and job title, tick the consent ("I agree that typing my name and selecting the button is my electronic signature, and that I am authorised to sign for the organisation named") and select Sign and submit. Their signature also covers your code of conduct.
- They get a receipt with a reference and can Download your receipt, which includes a fingerprint of their answers. After submitting, the answers can't be changed in the portal.
What your team is told
| When | What happens in SupplierVault |
|---|---|
| The link is first opened | Activity: "(contact) opened the supplier portal link". |
| A document is uploaded | Activity line naming the file and its label, and one open task "Check documents uploaded through the supplier portal" (due in 3 days). |
| A document is removed | Activity line saying it was removed before submitting. |
| The supplier submits | Forms become Submitted (the code of conduct becomes Signed and its task is completed). A task "Review supplier onboarding portal submission" goes to the supplier manager, due in 3 days. The record shows who signed and a Signature certificate. |
Your team then reviews each form and approves or rejects it as normal. See Onboarding.
Portal status
Not invited → Invited → In progress (once the first answer is saved) → Submitted. You'll see this in the Onboarding forms table.
Previewing what the supplier sees
Preview supplier view opens the portal as the supplier would see it, with a banner saying it's a preview. Anything you enter is saved to the supplier record and logged as entered on the supplier's behalf, which is handy when a supplier sends answers by email.
What the portal can't change
The portal can only fill in the supplier's own answers, documents and contacts. It can never change your internal fields such as stage, tier, owner, risk, evidence, form statuses, go-live, ERP details or bank verification.
Supplier accounts
Suppliers can sign in at suppliervault.co.uk/supplier/ with the email address your links go to. Their account lists every request sent to that address by any SupplierVault customer, the documents they've sent with expiry dates, and their signature receipts. From there they can open a request without the emailed link, and send an updated version of a document that expires within 60 days. You then get a task to check it, and the old document is marked "Replaced by a newer version". Accounts are free for suppliers. See Supplier accounts.
Which plan includes it
The supplier portal and e-signatures are included from the Professional plan and in the free trial. Only editors and admins can send links.