Should Suppliers Invoice Customers for Postal Audit Questionnaires?

mdenham · Apr 11, 2024

Organizations are often receiving detailed postal audit questionnaires from their customers (varying widely in length and scope, but occasionally reaching approx. ~30 pages). For small-to-medium organizations, filling-in such documents is a time-consuming process. While the questions typically follow a similar pattern, given the fact that the questions are phrased and ordered differently, and request different attachments, there is no "quick-and-easy" method of populating them.

So, in your opinion, might it ever be considered reasonable to invoice customers for such lengthy postal audit questionnaires?

Scanton · Apr 11, 2024

Does your company hold any of the ISO certifications?

The reason I ask is that my previous company did not, and received these sorts of questionnaires all of the time and most of the questions were based around their quality and environmental controls.
It wasn’t until a large supermarket chain supplied their questionnaire which bluntly asked on page one “Do you have ISO 9001”, “Do you have ISO14001” if you answered YES to questions 1 & 2 please turn to page 58 (the last page) where it asked for copies of your certificates along with a contact name, signature, and date. If you answered no you were required to complete the other 57 pages.

Shortly after I was employed by that company to implement these management systems and gain certification, and the relentless filling of questionnaires stopped.
They also gained multiple new large customers that they had always wanted to do business with and changed from a 7 million turnover business into a 30+ million turnover business is around 3 years.
But I’m sure that was just a coincidence ;-)

mdenham · Apr 11, 2024

Scanton said:
Does your company hold any of the ISO certifications?

The reason I ask is that my previous company did not, and received these sorts of questionnaires all of the time and most of the questions were based around their quality and environmental controls.
It wasn’t until a large supermarket chain supplied their questionnaire which bluntly asked on page one “Do you have ISO 9001”, “Do you have ISO14001” if you answered YES to questions 1 & 2 please turn to page 58 (the last page) where it asked for copies of your certificates along with a contact name, signature, and date. If you answered no you were required to complete the other 57 pages.

Shortly after I was employed by that company to implement these management systems and gain certification, and the relentless filling of questionnaires stopped.
They also gained multiple new large customers that they had always wanted to do business with and changed from a 7 million turnover business into a 30+ million turnover business is around 3 years.
But I’m sure that was just a coincidence ;-)

Yes indeed, the organization holds an ISO 9001 certificate. There are a number of customers who are in the pharmaceutical domain (think GxP).

chris1price · Apr 11, 2024

You can try charging for the questionnaires, but its unlikely to succeed. It probably depends on how much you value their business.

GStough · Apr 11, 2024

FWIW.....I've seen suppliers in the medical device industry (and there are probably others in other industries, as well) that have created their own version of such a document. It covers all or most of the questions that one typically sees on these questionnaires in a way such that any customer should be satisfied with it. If the supplier is registered to an ISO standard, they attach a copy of their certificate. When they receive one those dreaded questionnaires from a customer, they send their own document with a polite note explaining that due to the increase in requests for this information, they've elected to create a generic document containing much, if not all, of the information being asked in the questionnaire. In most cases, the customer will accept such a document in lieu of a completed questionnaire, simply attaching it to the questionnaire and placing it in the supplier's file.

mdenham · Apr 11, 2024

GStough said:
FWIW.....I've seen suppliers in the medical device industry (and there are probably others in other industries, as well) that have created their own version of such a document. It covers all or most of the questions that one typically sees on these questionnaires in a way such that any customer should be satisfied with it. If the supplier is registered to an ISO standard, they attach a copy of their certificate. When they receive one those dreaded questionnaires from a customer, they send their own document with a polite note explaining that due to the increase in requests for this information, they've elected to create a generic document containing much, if not all, of the information being asked in the questionnaire. In most cases, the customer will accept such a document in lieu of a completed questionnaire, simply attaching it to the questionnaire and placing it in the supplier's file.

Dear GStough,
This sounds like an excellent idea. And quite reasonable, too.
Thank you very much for your input.
It's amazing, but sometimes wise input may eventually save an organization thousands of € (or $)!
Warm regards,
Mark

Should Suppliers Invoice Customers for Postal Audit Questionnaires?

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