View of the xls form for vendor creation
What is a vendor creation form and why using one?
At the beginning there was light.
Since we are in the more down-to-earth business of purchasing and selling, at the beginning there is a first contact. Three possibilities:
- Passive – Vendor is reaching out actively to you: “Hey, I would like to be your vendor!” “I see you are selling shoes, and I have the nicest Italian boots ever”
- Active, internal – A colleague needs a new vendor (or thinks he needs a new vendor…). This would be typically coming from Engineering, Product Management, Remote subsidiary,…
- Active, yourself – You spotted a vendor where you might reach savings, or you are preparing an alternative sourcing to mitigate risks.
Imagine you are at a party. You spotted a girl (or a boy, or diverse, I really do not mind…). Either she comes to you, or you happen to help a friend in need, or you are the hunter tonight. Well, whatever the reason, sooner or later will come the questions “who are you / what do yo do / where do you live / How to pay you /…” Well, probably not the latter :-).
This is what a vendor creation is about. Answering all those questions at once, in a proper way, to satisfy your thirst for information, as much as the thirst of your colleagues. This is a checklist, all gathered in this vendor onboarding checklist template.
Where to download the templates:
Go directly at the bottom section of this article.
Now, process with the excel vendor account creation form:
- Send the new vendor creation form template to the vendor
- Inform that no discussion will happen before this is 100% sent back
- Make a sanity check on exclusion lists (US banned countries etc….)
- Read the results carefully and decide:
- Create an entry in your excel supplier database and start serious discussions
- stop right now any effort, the vendor is not suitable for your organization. This can happen for financial reasons (too small, bad scoring,…), strategical reason (competitor,…) or whatever criteria are relevant to you.
- Vendor code creation and vendor database entry creation
Structure of the Excel template for vendor account creation
The form is composed of 4 tabs, deploying a full vendor onboarding checklist in excel:
| General Information | Financial data | Technical information | Other details |
The last tab of the vendor registration form template has a specific field for signature, to ensure the commitment of the vendor.
Features of the vendor creation form in excel format:
The Excel template is fully editable, and not password protected. It gathers the most usual requirements you may have towards a supplier. This template can be seen as a vendor onboarding checklist, where all areas are covered. Don’t leave blind spot. Here a the main tabs:
General Vendor Information
As shown above, this tab contains the general information for vendor account creation:
- Address
- Business info
- Company info such as number of employee etc..
This helps to qualify and segment your vendor database at a later stage.
Financial Vendor Information
In this part of the supplier onboarding checklist template, this is about how reliable the vendor is:
- revenue history: shows trends and hints on how you will be important to them
- Banking information: you share this with your accounting department and can be used to check financial health of companies at 3rd parties (rating agencies)
- References: this is a crucial part. Even if you do not really intend to contact those references, the simple fact for the vendor to share it will force him to be more accurate and close to the truth.
Technical Vendor Information Template
Here this is about vendor capacities and how he might help your organization reaching its targets:
-
The bottom of the third tab vendor registration form Audits and relevant certificates: ISO, TISAX,…. Whatever is relevant for this specific vendor
- Services/Goods listing: an overview of what the vendor can provide, completed with his top sellers and main focus
- Intellectual property (IP): get an understanding, if the vendor’s technology is protected and how you can benefit from it. Or be blocked in your negotiation, when a monopolistic situation has been identified
Conclusion of the vendor form template
This is about getting some legal information:
- Do they have any dispute ongoing?
- Data Protection Regulation
- Trade Union and similar: with this information, it helps to understand how the vendor is positioning himself, and it give you a hint on how to get more information about him.
Please note: the file has no restrictions, no macros, no password lock
How the template of vendor registration form in Excel will help you:
Not only it saves you time and energy to standardize your information gathering (and further sharing internally), but it gives as well a strong impression to your future vendor about who is in charge. In a way, you prepare your negotiation position already…
- Get an easy and smooth information gathering at begin of relationship
- Prepare your database entry creation
- Improve decision-making: pre-select only supplier that truly fits your policy
- Prepare supplier onboarding: identify early where the supplier will beed support to deliver the best for your organization
Free Download of the vendor creation .xls template
The vendor creation form template is available for free download after email and newsletter registration. You will receive a link directly here. Any issue, just email me, I would send it to you.
Comments and improvement ideas are welcome!
