What do you really know about your suppliers?
Clover turns supplier assessment into a structured process: risk and capability questionnaires, document checks, references, and scoring, completed by the supplier through a guided task and decided on record, before onboarding ever starts.
Where supplier vetting breaks down
The "assessment" is a PDF questionnaire and a hopeful email.
Someone sends the new supplier a form. It comes back half complete, in the wrong format, weeks later. The answers live in an inbox, the follow-up questions live in another one, and nobody can say when the vetting is actually done.
Approval happens informally, and nobody can say why.
A category manager likes the supplier, a call goes well, and suddenly they're onboarding. The criteria that were supposed to gate the decision were never checked against anything. When the relationship goes wrong later, there is no record of what was evaluated or who said yes.
Vetting is slow, so it gets skipped exactly when it matters.
When the business urgently needs a supplier, a multi-week manual assessment is the first thing cut. The suppliers brought on under the most pressure get the least scrutiny, and those are the ones that surface in your next audit or quality incident.
Structured vetting. Scored answers. A decision on record.
Define what qualifies a supplier for each category of spend: the questionnaire, the required documents, the references, and the scoring. Clover sends it to the supplier as a guided task, validates what comes back, and routes the decision to the right owner, so assessment is fast enough that nobody needs to skip it.
Your criteria become the gate
Risk questionnaires, capability questions, insurance and certification checks, references. You define what a qualified supplier looks like by category, and every candidate goes through the same process.
Suppliers complete it themselves, guided step by step
The candidate supplier gets a clear, guided task: answer the questions, upload the documents, name the references. AI validates documents at submission, so incomplete or expired paperwork never reaches your review.
The decision is scored, owned, and recorded
Responses are scored against your criteria, exceptions are routed to the right reviewer, and the approve, conditional, or decline decision carries its reasoning. The assessment becomes the first entry in the supplier's permanent record.
From "seems fine" to qualified, in days
Define your qualification criteria
Questionnaire sections, required documents, scoring rules, and approval routing, set per supplier category. A produce grower and an IT vendor don't need the same bar, and they don't get the same one.
Send the assessment as a guided task
The candidate supplier completes it step by step: questions, uploads, references. AI validates documents on the spot, and automatic reminders chase the stragglers so your team doesn't.
Score, decide, and carry it forward
Responses come back scored against your criteria. Your reviewer approves, declines, or approves with conditions, on record. Approved suppliers flow straight into onboarding with their documents already in hand.
Every industry vets suppliers. Few can prove how.
Foodservice
Food safety posture, certifications, and capability checks before a new grower, manufacturer, or distributor ever ships you product.
See Clover for foodserviceRetail
Vendor standards, insurance, and compliance vetting before the first PO, so problem vendors are caught before they cost you chargebacks.
See Clover for retailManufacturing
Quality systems, capacity, certifications, and financial stability, assessed and scored before a new supplier enters your qualified list.
See Clover for manufacturingCorporate Procurement
Risk questionnaires, insurance, security posture, and references, scored consistently before any new vendor or service provider is approved.
See Clover for procurementHealthcare
Credentialing, regulatory standing, and quality certifications, verified and scored before a supplier can serve your facilities or GPO.
See Clover for healthcareYour industry
If new suppliers should meet a bar before you do business, and today that bar lives in a spreadsheet, a PDF, and someone's judgment, this workflow applies.
See all solutionsFrequently asked questions
Supplier assessment is the qualification and vetting a buyer runs before onboarding a new supplier: risk and capability questionnaires, document and insurance checks, references, and an approval decision. In Clover it runs as a structured, scored workflow the supplier completes through a guided task, so the decision is fast, consistent, and on record.
Assessment answers 'should we work with this supplier?' Onboarding answers 'get them set up to transact.' Clover keeps them distinct but connected: an approved assessment flows directly into onboarding, and the documents already collected carry forward so the supplier is never asked twice.
Yes. The same scored assessment you use to qualify a new supplier can be scheduled to run again on your existing base, annually, after an incident, or whenever risk changes. Suppliers update their answers and documents through a guided task, responses are re-scored against your current criteria, and anything that has slipped since last time is flagged for review. Qualification becomes something you maintain, not a one-time gate at the start.
Yes. Criteria, required documents, scoring, and approval routing are configured per supplier category. A food manufacturer, a services vendor, and an IT supplier can each face the right bar without your team maintaining three manual processes.
No. The supplier receives a guided, step-by-step task: answer the questions, upload the documents, submit. AI validates documents at submission, and if something is missing or expired they see it immediately and can fix it before your team ever gets involved.
It becomes the first entry in the supplier's permanent record: the score, the reviewer, the reasoning, and any conditions attached. Conditional approvals become tracked obligations with deadlines, and when anyone later asks how a supplier was qualified, the answer is one record, not an email search.
See assessment running on your criteria
We'll walk you through a live supplier assessment, built on the criteria you actually use.
We start with your problems, then show you how Clover would solve them. A real walkthrough with someone who knows supplier operations.
Typical deployments cost less than a single procurement coordinator.
- SAML 2.0 SSO
- AES-256 + TLS 1.2+
- Immutable audit trail
- SOC 2 (in progress)
- Security questionnaire on request
- Security details →