Free Vendor Questionnaire Template

Imagine a dental clinic that’s about to hand its computers and scheduling system to a small IT support firm. Before the first invoice, the clinic wants to know who it’s dealing with: the firm’s legal name, its insurance, and whether anyone else will touch the work. The IT firm gets a form called “Vendor Questionnaire” and wonders how much each answer commits it to.

A vendor questionnaire template puts those answers in one place. A customer fills in details on requesting customer/procurement contact and proposed engagement/onboarding reference before sending the form. After that, it sends the document to a vendor. The vendor then fills in everything from the legal business name through the attachments and declaration. Then an authorized person signs the declaration. Once the vendor sends it back, the customer reviews the answers and records the decision, signing it.

A vendor questionnaire is useful for onboarding-related matters but isn’t a good fit if you need a binding agreement.

Here’s a quick look at different situations and whether the document fits:

It’s best to treat this document as a vendor onboarding questionnaire, that is, the first step in the potential business relationship. The ultimate document both sides need depends on their business intent.

It’s common to treat the “approved” checkbox as “hired,” but that’s not the case here. The form says it plainly: submission does not guarantee approval or orders. Approval means the customer is comfortable working with this vendor. The order, price, and terms come from a purchase order, a quote, or an agreement. A vendor that buys materials or starts work on approval alone does so at its own risk.

The vendor questionnaire covers one proposed job, which is named in the “Proposed engagement/onboarding reference” field. If the customer later asks the same vendor to do a second job, that’s a new engagement, and some answers may change. When filling in the questionnaire, a vendor should consider how ready it is for the particular case in discussion.

A vendor questionnaire can ask the vendor to provide the following:

Both sides should prepare information before filling out the questionnaire. By including only relevant information, the document becomes much more useful for the specific collaboration.

Decide what this job really needs before you send the supplier questionnaire. A cleaning company that comes twice a week doesn’t need to prove the same things as an IT firm that will hold your admin passwords. Ask for the insurance and licenses that relate to the work, not everything “just in case.”

Three fields identify the business that will sign the contract and get paid: Legal business name, Legal business type, and State/country of formation. A brand or trading name goes only in “DBA/trading name (if any).”

Vendors should also keep in mind that the legal name must match their W-9. For small vendors, the name on the W-9 form isn’t always the business name:

Moreover, the vendor questionnaire form has separate fields for the ordering contact and the payment/remittance contact because these are often different people. In many small businesses, the owner takes orders and a part-time bookkeeper sends invoices. Filling in both keeps orders and invoices from landing in the wrong inbox.

The supplier questionnaire template asks you to list only the credentials that apply to this work, with the issuer or carrier and the number, limit, and expiration date. Expiration dates matter most because the customer tracks them after approval.

When filling in (or evaluating) the certificate field, both the customer and a vendor should check whether the insured name on the certificate matches the vendor’s legal business name. The vendor may have changed the business name or have different certificates for different companies. And so, if the name on the liability policy on a certificate isn’t the same as the vendor’s name on a questionnaire (and a contract later on), it won’t cover the vendor’s business that signs the contract. Doing a double-check protects both parties.

Coverage is determined solely by the insurance policy and its endorsements, not by a certificate of insurance (such as the ACORD 25 form). A certificate is merely a summary and does not grant any legal rights to the holder.

If a client requires protection under a vendor’s insurance, they must be added directly to the policy as an "additional insured" through a written endorsement. This is common under a subcontractor agreement; for example, a plumbing subcontractor working for a general contractor is usually required to name the general contractor as an additional insured. Before confirming coverage, the subcontractor should verify with their broker that the proper endorsement is active and matches the policy terms.

The Engagement risk and follow-up section has three “Yes / No / Unknown” questions. They decide how much follow-up the customer needs. Any Yes or Unknown needs a short explanation in “For Yes / Unknown: scope, safeguards and evidence references.”

“No” isn’t necessarily a safe option. If a vendor ticks “No” and later brings in a subcontractor or gives its staff access to the customer’s systems, the record is wrong. The customer then has a reason to doubt every other answer on the form. Until the plan is settled, “Unknown” with a short explanation is the honest answer.

A “Yes” on data access is where this form hands off to other documents. The questionnaire records that the vendor will see customer systems or personal data. It doesn’t cover how that data is protected. A separate security questionnaire covers the controls, and a data agreement covers the obligations.

Staffing agencies are a prime example of where this context often gets tricky. A staffing agency is a vendor whose primary service is supplying human talent to the customer. When completing the questionnaire, the agency must account for the access level of the workers it places with the customer, not just its own internal back-office staff. If those placed workers will touch customer systems, the agency must answer “Yes” to system access. As a result, the customer knows a data agreement must sit next to the staffing agency services contract.

The disputes question covers anything that could affect the work: an open dispute with a client over similar work, or a restriction like a non-compete with one of the customer’s competitors. If there’s nothing, vendors pick “No.” If they’re checking, they choose “Unknown” and explain why.

The “Service continuity/substitute capacity/recovery arrangements” field asks what happens if the key person or site is unavailable. A short, real answer works better than a general promise. “If our lead technician is out, our second certified technician covers, and we respond within 48 hours” tells the customer something. “We have strong continuity plans” keeps things vague.

Want to know if the dispute and backup subjects are covered sufficiently? Use AI summary to analyze the document and pinpoint red flags.

The vendor questionnaire template asks only for a “Remittance address / secure record reference” but doesn’t ask for bank details directly. It simply says to collect W-9s, tax IDs, and banking details separately through a secure process. The reasons behind it are simple:

The vendor’s signer confirms two things: that they’re authorized to submit the questionnaire for the vendor, and that the information is accurate to the best of their knowledge. The signer should be someone who can speak for the business, like the owner, an officer, or a manager, not whoever happened to receive the email. By signing, the vendor also promises to report material changes.

The Customer review only section gives three outcomes:

An approved questionnaire doesn’t stay accurate forever. Revisit it when:

This is how a vendor questionnaire usually goes: a PDF or Word file travels back and forth by email, gets filled in by hand, and comes back as a signed scan. The attachments arrive in separate threads. A year later, when an insurance policy expires, nobody can find the final version. With Loio, the process of filling in the questionnaire and storing it is pretty straightforward: