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Supplier document management on M‑Files

Know before a supplier certificate expires

A supplier's ISO certificate ran out in March, and nobody noticed until the audit. The certificate was in an email and the agreement on a shared drive. We set M‑Files up so each supplier has its documents attached, and the owner hears before anything expires.

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A Suppliers view in M-Files with one supplier opened to its framework agreement, its ISO and insurance certificates, its audit report and its emails, each with the date it runs to, beside the ISO certificate's metadata card
Under each supplier

The documents a supplier file holds

Supplier document management keeps everything about a supplier in one place, with an expiry date on the documents that have one and an owner who hears before it passes. Which kinds of document you keep is your decision; these are the usual ones.

Certificates

ISO, product and environmental certificates, each with its expiry date, so the list of what runs out next builds itself.

Insurance

Liability and other insurance certificates with their renewal dates, filed where purchasing and quality both find them.

Agreements and NDAs

The framework agreement, the price list and the confidentiality agreement, reviewed and approved in a workflow, with every earlier draft kept.

Audit reports

Your supplier audits and their findings, filed under the supplier with the date of the next one.

Approval records

The questionnaire or self-assessment the supplier filled in, and the record of who approved the supplier and when.

Correspondence

Emails to and from the supplier, filed from Outlook with their metadata so they sit with the rest of the file.

Around each supplier

Open the supplier, find the documents

Purchasing, quality and finance each keep part of a supplier's paperwork. In M‑Files they find the same documents, each from their own lists.

  • Agreements and price lists — Supplier agreements and price lists are reviewed and approved in a workflow, and the earlier drafts stay in the version history.
  • Certificate expiry on one list — Certificates and audit reports are filed under the supplier with their expiry date. A list shows what runs out next, and the owner can be reminded in good time.
  • New suppliers approved step by step — Approving a new supplier can run as a workflow, where permissions decide who may move it to the next step.
  • Each department sees what it needs — Purchasing, quality and finance each see the documents their role needs.
  • One name for each supplier — Suppliers can come from your finance or purchasing system through an integration, so a supplier is called the same thing in both places.
  • Part of the quality system — With VisualQMS, deviations and issues are linked to the procedures they come from.
A supplier in M-Files opened to its framework agreement and its certificates, each with the date it runs to, and its emails, beside the ISO certificate's metadata card
Supplier approval workflow

From request to approved supplier

A new supplier is approved in a workflow, with a task for each department and a record of who said yes.

  1. Requested

    Purchasing

    The supplier is created with its details and the documents it has to provide. The workflow assigns the collection of those documents, with a deadline and a reminder before it.

  2. Reviewed

    Quality and finance

    Certificates, insurance and the audit report are checked, each by the role whose job it is. Permissions decide who may move the supplier to the next state.

  3. Approved

    The approver

    The state change is recorded with the time and the user. The supplier now appears on the approved list, and its expiry dates feed the list of what runs out next.

  4. Kept current

    A certificate expiry creates a task to the owner in time to get the new one, and a supplier whose documents lapse can be moved off the approved list the same way.

The M-Files web client with a customer opened to its documents and emails beside the metadata card of its framework agreement, with class, customer, contact person, dates and the workflow band at Approved
With the supplier

How documents get in from a supplier

Suppliers send certificates by email, fill in questionnaires and need to see the agreement they signed. Each has its route.

  • By email, filed from Outlook — A certificate that arrives as an attachment is filed from Outlook under the supplier with its expiry date, and M‑Files can pick up the contact from the email.
  • Shared with Hubshare — With M‑Files Hubshare, you share selected content with invited suppliers, who see only the hubs they are invited to.
  • Filled in with CtrlShare — CtrlShare, from our development partner CtrlDocs, invites a supplier by email to fill in a questionnaire or an agreement in the browser. They confirm with a code, there are no public links, and the document returns to M‑Files as a new version.
Integrations

Works with the ERP and the quality system

Suppliers already exist in your ERP, and their audits belong with the rest of the quality work. M‑Files connects to both.

ERP and purchasing system

Suppliers are kept in sync with an external database, so a supplier is created once in your ERP and found under the same name in M‑Files.

A view per department

Purchasing, quality and finance each have their own views of the same supplier file, and access follows what each document is.

VisualQMS

In VisualQMS, which runs on M‑Files, supplier audits are planned and followed with the rest of the quality work, and a deviation stays linked to the procedure it came from.

Scanned certificates

A certificate on paper is scanned once, and M‑Files OCR makes it a searchable PDF filed under the supplier.

Next step

See a supplier with everything attached

Book a demo and we show a supplier in M‑Files with its agreements, its certificates and the approval workflow. We answer the same working day.

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Questions

Questions about the set-up

How do the reminders work?
The expiry date is a field on the certificate or the agreement. A view lists what runs out next, and a workflow in M‑Files can notify the owner ahead of the date. Reminders are part of the configuration, so tell us how much notice you need.
How is a supplier stored in M‑Files?
A supplier can be set up as an object of its own, with its agreements, certificates and audit reports linked to it by metadata, so each department finds the same documents from its own views.
What decides who sees which documents?
Access is set by document class and metadata, so purchasing, quality and finance see the documents their role needs.
How do suppliers send us their documents?
Most arrive by email and are filed from Outlook under the supplier with their expiry date. With M‑Files Hubshare, you share selected content with invited suppliers. To have a supplier fill in a questionnaire or an agreement, CtrlShare from our development partner CtrlDocs invites them by email to edit it in the browser, and the document returns to M‑Files as a new version.
Who can approve a new supplier?
The approval is a workflow, set up in a graphical designer rather than coded. Each state assigns a task to a named person or to a role taken from the supplier's metadata, with a deadline, and permissions decide who may move the supplier to the next state. The event log records each state change with the time and the user.
Is this part of VisualQMS?
A supplier file in M‑Files stands on its own. VisualQMS, our complete quality management system, runs on the same M‑Files, so supplier audits and deviations can link to the supplier's documents. In manufacturing the two usually go together.
Does it run in the cloud or on our own servers?
Either, or a hybrid of the two. M‑Files Cloud runs on Microsoft Azure, where your data is encrypted in storage and in transit, and M‑Files holds an ISO/IEC 27001 certification that covers M‑Files Cloud, Hubshare and Aino. Pricing and editions sets out what a quote contains.