The Supplier List Template
for every supplier you trade with.

Supplier list vs approved supplier list

The two lists answer different questions, and keeping them apart is what keeps both of them useful.

A new supplier usually starts on the supplier list as Onboarding. Once it has been evaluated and approved it goes on the ASL, and it stays on the supplier list as Active. When you stop using a supplier, mark it Inactive here and Removed on the ASL rather than deleting it from either, so the history survives. The On approved list column in this template is the link between the two, and the Summary sheet counts any supplier marked No.

What to include in a supplier database

Every column in the template earns its place. If you are building your own supplier spreadsheet, these are the fields worth keeping:

• Supplier ID. A short unique reference such as SUP-0001. Use the same reference in your accounts package so the two records match without relying on names, which change.
• Legal name and trading name. The legal name is the one on contracts and on Companies House. The trading name is the one on the van. Invoices can carry either.
• Companies House number. The one identifier that stays the same when a company renames itself. It has eight characters: companies registered in England and Wales are numeric, Scottish companies start SC, Northern Irish companies NI and LLPs OC. Sole traders and most partnerships have none.
• Category. What you buy from them, picked from a fixed list so you can count and filter. The template keeps the options on a Lists sheet you can edit.
• Contacts and address. A named main contact plus a role-based email such as orders@ or accounts@, which keeps working when people leave, and the registered address.
• Status. Active, Onboarding, On hold or Inactive. On hold means no new orders until something is fixed, and the whole row turns amber.
• Spend band. A rough annual band rather than an exact figure, so the list does not need updating every month. It shows where a closer look is worth the time.
• On approved list. Whether the supplier is on your ASL. No turns amber, so suppliers that should have been evaluated stand out.
• Owner and next review. One named person per supplier, and a date to check the record is still right. Past dates turn red.

Leave bank details out. A spreadsheet shared around the business is the wrong place for them, and bank details are a favourite target for payment fraud. Keep them in your finance system, where changes can be controlled and verified by phone.

How to set up your supplier spreadsheet

1. Export what you already have. Your accounts package can produce a supplier report. Paste it into the template and drop anyone you have not paid in the last two years.
2. Remove duplicates. The same supplier often appears twice, once under its trading name and once under its legal name. The Companies House number settles which is which.
3. Add Companies House numbers. Search each company on the free Find and update company information service from Companies House, check the registered address matches, and copy the number. Note any company shown as dissolved or in liquidation.
4. Set category, status and spend band. Use the dropdowns so the Summary sheet can count them.
5. Give every supplier an owner and a review date. Then open the Summary sheet: it shows overdue reviews, suppliers with no owner, missing company numbers and suppliers that are not on your approved list.

For each new supplier from then on, collect the details with a supplier onboarding form before the first order, and work through the UK supplier onboarding checklist for anything that needs a closer look.

When a spreadsheet stops being enough

A supplier list in Excel works well for a few dozen suppliers and one person keeping it current. It starts to struggle when several people edit their own copies, when contacts go stale between reviews, or when you need to know the day a supplier's company status changes rather than at the next annual check.

That last point is where the Companies House number pays off. With it, software can check every supplier against the public register each day, which a spreadsheet cannot. Supplio does this through supplier due diligence monitoring, and its supplier onboarding software collects each new supplier's details through a branded portal, so the record is complete from the start.

Templates and guides that work alongside it

• Approved supplier list template: approval status, scope, certificates and insurance for the suppliers that matter most.
• Supplier onboarding form template: the questions to ask a new supplier, with a document checklist.
• Preferred supplier list template: who buyers should use first in each category.