26/08/2026
ERPs and finance tools are great at onboarding vendors. They're not built to prequalify them. 🚫
They'll capture the basic business details – enough to get a vendor paid. But whether that vendor can deliver, safely and to a standard? That question was never part of the brief.
Which is how you end up with a high-risk subcontractor sailing through the same generic questions as a low-risk supplier – because the tool doesn't know the difference, and doesn't ask. 🚩
Here’s a quick check for procurement teams:
🔍 Do all your vendors go through the same prequalification process, regardless of risk?
🔍 If a vendor's compliance lapsed today, would anything flag it?
🔍 Could you pull a full compliance history for a high-risk supplier without chasing them for documents?
If any of those made you wince, it's usually prequalification either isn’t happening at all, or it’s happening somewhere completely disconnected from onboarding – different system, different team, no link between the two.
We unpacked why it happens, why it matters, and what changes when the two are properly connected.
👉 https://www.felix.net/blog/vendor-onboarding-vs-prequalification-whats-the-difference-and-why-it-matters
