The Supplier Onboarding Form Template
that asks once, properly.

What a supplier onboarding form is for

The form has two jobs. The first is setup: the legal name, company number, addresses and contacts that finance and purchasing need to create the supplier record. The second is evaluation: the answers and documents that tell you whether the supplier meets your requirements, and how much more checking its risk justifies.

Whatever you call it, a new supplier form, a vendor onboarding form or a supplier onboarding questionnaire, it is the supplier's own declaration. Treat the answers as claims to verify rather than facts. The checking happens after the form comes back, and the answers tell you where to look.

What the form asks, section by section

1. Company details. Registered name, legal structure, Companies House number, addresses, VAT number, year established, employee band and any parent company. The company number is the anchor for every later check.
2. Contacts. A main contact, an accounts contact and, where it matters, an out-of-hours contact. Role-based email addresses survive staff changes.
3. Goods and services. What the supplier will provide, where from, and whether any of it is subcontracted. This becomes the approved scope on your approved supplier list.
4. Bank details, guidance only. How you will collect and verify bank details, and a clear statement that you never act on a change sent by email alone.
5. Insurance. Employers' liability, public liability and, where relevant, product liability and professional indemnity, each with insurer, limit and expiry date. Most UK employers must hold employers' liability cover of at least £5 million by law. Keeping those expiry dates current afterwards is the job of certificate of insurance tracking.
6. Certifications. Quality, environmental, health and safety, information security and sector schemes, each with certificate number, certification body and expiry date.
7. Modern slavery. Whether the supplier's turnover is £36 million or more, which brings it under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and its annual statement, and how smaller suppliers manage the risk anyway.
8. Data protection. Whether the supplier will process personal data for you, which means a data processing agreement under UK GDPR Article 28, plus its ICO registration and where your data will be held.
9. Health and safety. A written policy, which is a legal requirement at five or more employees, a named responsible person, RIDDOR-reportable incidents, any enforcement action, and whether the supplier's people will work on your premises.
10. Ethics and declarations. Anti-bribery, sanctions, conflicts of interest, agreement to your supplier code of conduct, and a signed declaration that the answers are accurate.

A final section is for your own team: risk tier, reviewer, decision, approved scope and who verified the bank details.

Not every question suits every supplier, so remove what does not apply before you send it. A cleaning contractor needs the health and safety section in full, a software supplier needs data protection in full, and a low-risk stationery supplier needs little beyond company details and insurance. Shorter forms come back sooner.

Why bank details are not on the form

Payment diversion fraud, where a criminal poses as a supplier and asks you to pay a new account, relies on bank details travelling through ordinary email. An onboarding spreadsheet emailed back and forth puts account numbers in exactly that channel, where anyone who gets into either mailbox can change them.

The template replaces bank detail fields with guidance the supplier can see:

• bank details are collected through a separate, secure route, such as your supplier portal or a bank-issued confirmation letter;
• before the first payment, the account is confirmed by phoning a number you already hold or have found independently, never one given in the same request;
• a change of bank details sent by email alone is never acted on, and a second person approves any change in your finance system.

The internal section of the form records who verified the details and when, so the check leaves evidence behind it.

After the form comes back

Check the answers before you approve. Look the company up on Companies House and confirm the name, number, address and status match. Read each insurance certificate for the named insured, the limit and the expiry date. Confirm certificates with the certification body, and check that the scope on each certificate covers what you are buying. The UK supplier onboarding checklist sets out 37 checks in order.

Then record the decision. Add an approved supplier to your approved supplier list with its approved scope and next review date, and add every supplier, approved or not, to your supplier list. Log document expiry dates on the Documents sheet so renewals do not catch you out.

Templates and guides that work alongside it

• Approved supplier list template: where approved suppliers go once the form has been checked.
• Supplier list template: the directory of every supplier you trade with.
• Supplier email templates: copy and paste emails for onboarding requests and chasers.
• UK supplier onboarding checklist: the full set of checks, as a free PDF.