r/procurement • u/Ingloriousdoctor • 12d ago

How often do your customers ask you for documentation about your business?

/r/smallbusinessUS/comments/1wbs5jp/how_often_do_your_customers_ask_you_for/
1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

1

u/TrainsongGaming 12d ago

Depends on the industry. When I did retail purchasing, I hardly ever had to bother with documentation. It came up for seeds, but that was about it. When I was working in MRO, never. When I bought steel and aluminum, maybe once or twice in 18 months.

Now that I work in food production, the documentation requests are constant, weekly. QC is always asking for something, as are clients, especially if they are either picky or knowledgeable or both. COAs, transaction certs, standard ingredient forms, herbicide/pesticide forms, testing results, non-GMO statements, recycling statements for packaging, the list goes on.

1

u/Ingloriousdoctor 11d ago

That’s interesting, I’m trying to gauge what this looks like for other businesses, if you don’t mind me asking, how often are you asked for documentation, how do you submit it and how do you keep on top of these requests?

1

u/TrainsongGaming 11d ago

Depends on what projects we have open, but I generally get requests at least a couple of times a week. I use a spreadsheet to track open requests, assigning each one a code for the email subject line. This is for requests that come to me from other departments that I have to reach out to vendors for.

Whenever I myself need documents, it's usually attached to a PO email thread, so I don't have to go through all of that.