Vendor onboarding

Vendor onboarding is the gate every supplier passes through before the workspace can transact with them. Skip it and the cost is real: fraudulent banking details, double payments to colluding suppliers, regulatory violations on sanctioned-party transactions, or simply a tax filing the workspace can't reconcile because the W-9 was never collected. The onboarding flow stages the supplier through identity → qualification → tax + banking → sanctions → approval, with each step's evidence attached so the supplier file is audit-ready from day one.

TL;DR — Open Procurement → Vendors → New vendor. Capture identity, send the vendor self-service intake to the supplier (they fill in tax + banking themselves), run sanctions screening, approve. The vendor is now active for POs.

Before you start

• Confirm why you need this vendor — a single-purchase exception or an ongoing relationship. Single-purchase one-offs may use a lightweight onboarding path (with restrictions on total spend).
• Have the supplier's business name, tax ID, primary contact, remit-to address. The vendor-self-service form will collect banking + tax docs from the supplier directly so the workspace doesn't hold the data in an email thread.
• Plan for a sanctions screening failure to be the most common gate. Names match across the global lists more often than people expect; manual review usually clears them, but budget the time.

Stage 1 — Identity

1. 1

   Open Procurement → Vendors → New vendor

   The intake form opens.

2. 2

   Capture business identity

   Legal name, DBA, business type (corp / LLC / partnership / sole prop / non-profit / government), state of formation, primary contact name + email + phone.

3. 3

   Run a duplicate-vendor check

   The platform searches for matching names + tax IDs across active + inactive vendors. Duplicates are a major fraud vector and a finance headache; reuse the existing record when match is real.

4. 4

   Pick the vendor type

   Standard supplier / one-time / employee reimbursement (for employees paid as vendors for documented purposes) / intercompany / government. Each carries different defaults

   • approval thresholds.
5. 5

   Save as Draft

   The vendor enters Draft status. You can now send the self-service invite to the supplier.

Stage 2 — Qualification

Qualification asks "is this supplier suitable to deal with for this category of spend?" The workspace decides which categories require what level of qualification — minimum bar is usually financial stability + insurance + relevant certifications.

Stage 3 — Tax and banking (vendor self-service)

The workspace does not collect or hold the supplier's tax + banking data through email. The supplier fills in a secure self-service form; the workspace receives the structured data + the signed documents.

1. 1

   From the vendor draft → "Send self-service invite"

   The supplier's primary contact receives a tokenized link to the intake form.

2. 2

   Supplier completes the form

   Tax: W-9 (US domestic), W-8BEN/BEN-E (foreign), local equivalents elsewhere. Banking: bank name, routing/IBAN/BIC, account, account holder name. Remit-to: where invoices should send.

3. 3

   Supplier signs the tax form digitally

   The W-9 / W-8 is generated from the supplier's input and e-signed on submission. The signed PDF is stored on the vendor record.

4. 4

   Banking is validated

   A penny verification (for US ACH) or a bank-letter confirmation (international) is the second leg of validation. Banking details aren't activated until verified.

5. 5

   The vendor draft returns to the workspace

   Marked Self-service complete, ready for sanctions screening.

Stage 4 — Sanctions screening

Every vendor + every banking-detail change runs through sanctions screening before activation.

A name match doesn't always mean a real match — manual review clears most. When a hit is real, the vendor is rejected and the rejection is documented.

Stage 5 — Approval + activation

1. 1

   Procurement reviews the full file

   Identity + qualification + tax/banking + sanctions all present

   • clean.
2. 2

   Workspace-policy approver signs off

   Often the procurement director for standard vendors; treasurer or CFO for vendors above an annual spend threshold.

3. 3

   Vendor moves to Active

   The vendor is now available for requisitions + POs. The supplier receives a welcome notification with their vendor ID + the workspace's supplier portal link.

Every field, explained

Common gotchas

• "Supplier wants to change banking via email." Don't. Banking changes must go through the self-service flow + the re-screening. Email-driven banking changes are the canonical fraud vector ("hi, we changed banks, please redirect that $200k payment").
• "The W-9 didn't return all fields." The form requires the legal name, address, tax classification, EIN/SSN, and signature. Missing fields block the e-sign; supplier must complete + resubmit.
• "Sanctions screening returned a hit on a clearly different person." Document the basis for the clearance (different middle name, different date of birth, different country) and approve with rationale. The documented clearance is the audit defense.
• "This vendor was inactive but I want to reactivate." Re-screen sanctions + re-confirm banking + tax docs (they may have changed). Don't reactivate without the refresh.
• "Employee wants to be paid as a vendor for a one-off service." Probably an employment-classification issue. Coordinate with HR/HCM before approving the employee-vendor path; misclassification has tax + benefits + statutory consequences.

Troubleshooting

How this is recorded

Every onboarding step + every change to identity / banking / tax / sanctions / status writes to the vendor history ledger. The ledger is the artifact the auditor reads to confirm vendor master controls are operating + that high-risk changes (especially banking) went through the right approvals. Retention follows the audit-log retention FINANCE floor (default 7 years) at minimum; tax document retention follows the applicable tax-record rule.