Written by Marijn Overvest | Reviewed by Sjoed Goedhart | Fact Checked by Ruud Emonds | Our editorial policy
Supplier Evaluation Form — Template + Tips
As taught in the Supplier Relationship Management Course / ★★★★★ 4.9 rating
Table of contents
What is a supplier evaluation form?
- A supplier evaluation form is a practical tool businesses use to assess potential suppliers and existing suppliers. It rates key aspects such as performance, pricing, quality, and sustainability, making it an essential part of the procurement process.
- Supplier evaluation forms are not always questionnaires, they can be scorecards or done face-to-face through discussions.
- The supplier evaluation is a part of the RFP process wherein proposals from suppliers are submitted to test suitability.
What is a Supplier Evaluation Form?
A supplier evaluation form is a practical tool businesses use to assess potential suppliers. It rates key aspects such as performance, pricing, quality, and sustainability, making it an essential part of the procurement process.
Supplier evaluation, on the other hand, is the structured process of analyzing suppliers and their offerings. This ensures they meet the organization’s specific standards and align with its goals.
The evaluation form gathers detailed information about a supplier’s capabilities, from the quality of their products and services to their pricing and sustainability practices. By comparing this data to predefined criteria, organizations can confidently choose suppliers who meet their needs while fostering partnerships that support long-term success.
This approach ensures better procurement decisions while also highlighting suppliers who bring value beyond the basics, creating opportunities for collaboration and growth.
Supplier Evaluation Form Template
Using a supplier evaluation form can streamline your procurement process, helping you assess supplier performance efficiently. Below are the template that I created that you can use to help you simplify your evaluation process.
How to Evaluate Suppliers with Our Template
When evaluating suppliers, it’s essential to have a structured approach to ensure you’re making the right decision. That’s why we’ve created our supplier scorecard template to help you assess supplier performance easily and efficiently.
To get started. The first thing you need to do is gather all the essential documents you’ll need. This includes your request for proposal (RFP), vendor responses, and any relevant contracts. These documents will be your reference point to evaluate suppliers properly.
After gathering all the necessary documents and ensuring your suppliers have provided you with clear and complete answers to all your questions, it is time for you to fill out the supplier scorecard. Begin by filling in the supplier’s name, buying category, and your name in the designated sections. This ensures clarity on which supplier is being evaluated and who is responsible for the assessment.
Then, determine your key evaluation criteria. What factors matter most to your business? Is it pricing, product quality, delivery performance, or customer service? Identify related criteria, group them, and assign appropriate weights based on their importance or priority.
Next, rate your suppliers using the 1 to 5 scale in our scorecard. For each evaluation factor, simply score them based on their performance. The template also allows you to add comments if needed. This will help you justify your ratings and provide additional insights.
Once done, you can proceed in calculating the overall supplier rating. The template already included the area weight which you can adjust accordingly. To get the area rating, you need to sum up the scores within a category and divide by the number of items. Then, multiply the total area rating by the area weight and divide by 100 to get the weighted rating.
Finally, sum up all weighted ratings to determine the supplier’s overall performance score. The supplier who has the highest overall rating is the best supplier you can choose.
Contents of Supplier Evaluation Form
To evaluate supplier and their proposals, we should have a supplier evaluation form ready so that we can input the supplier’s information and proposals.
Here are examples of contents that are usually a common element of a supplier evaluation form:
1. General Supplier Information
Basic data on the supplier, such as their name, address, contact details, and any relevant certificates or accreditations shall also be included.
2. Supplier Background and Experience
The history, experience, and expertise of the supplier shall be covered in this section. It may inquire about their years in business, key clients, references, and other relevant qualifications.
3. Products and Service Quality
The quality of the products or services supplied by the supplier shall be assessed in this section. It may ask for measures to control quality, observance of industry standards, accreditations, or any other previous issues related to quality.
4. Delivery Times
The ability of the provider to meet delivery deadlines and lead times will be assessed in this aspect. Questions concerning their order fulfillment procedures, transport methods, and any guarantees or sanctions relating to delays in delivery can be included.
5. Pricing and Financial Stability
The price structure of the supplier, payment terms, and total financial stability shall be examined in this section. It may examine their pricing competitiveness, payment options, credit terms, and any other indicators of financial health or risk.
6. Customer Service and Support
This is done to assess the responsiveness, communication, and support mechanisms of the supplier. Questions relating to availability, response times, complaints handling processes, and overall customer satisfaction may be included in this report.
7. Ethical and Sustainability Considerations
A supplier’s commitment to ethical business practices, social responsibilities, and the sustainability of the environment is assessed in this section. Their policies on working conditions, environmental impacts, compliance with laws, and any relevant certificate or initiatives may be examined by the Commission.
Pro Tip: Don’t treat supplier evaluation forms like just another checkbox. They’re more than a scoring sheet—they’re a conversation starter.
Use the form to highlight strengths and spark dialogue around weak points. For example, if a supplier scores low on sustainability, that’s your cue to ask how they plan to improve—and offer support if it aligns with your values.
⭢ In our Supplier Relationship Management Course, we show you how to turn evaluations into collaborative improvement plans that boost performance and trust over time.
Types of Supplier Evaluation Form
1. Scorecards
For each of the evaluation criteria, vendor scorecards may be developed with a numeric rating system. For you to compare suppliers, this means that your data about each vendor can be measured.
2. Discussions
Informal discussions are an opportunity for leaders and teams who know the products to discuss their options. The discussions can help all of the team members to take a decision about which factors are most relevant when selecting suppliers, as each member may have their own priorities such as cost or convenience.
3. Questionnaires
Supplier questionnaires provide more qualitative data, e.g. quality and communications efficiency, can be obtained by means of questionnaires. In order to clarify some of their procedures, you could also provide the suppliers with questions.
4. Supplier visits
In order to gain an understanding of the business and its production processes, certain undertakings visit suppliers at their premises. It will allow you to get familiar with senior staff and take note of the supplier environment.
Software Available to Manage Supplier Evaluation Form
To support your management of supplier evaluation forms, there are now many software and tools you can use. Here are the top 5 softwares available for you to use:
1. Coupa
Coupa offers a feature specifically designed for creating and managing job orders. It provides workflows, document management, and reporting functions for procurement needs.
2. Procurify
Procurify is equipped with a variety of tools that optimize procurement tasks. Creating a job order as well as purchase orders is one of them. It also comes with its own mobile application for iOS and Android devices which makes it very accessible.
3. Tradogram
Tradogram is a top-rated e-procurement software solution that helps businesses manage their procurement process from end to end. It includes supplier management, contract management, and spending analysis.
4. Kissflow
Kissflow is a cloud-based procurement software tool that helps businesses manage their procurement process from requisition to payment. It includes supplier management, contract management, and spending analysis.
5. Whatfix
Whatfix is a cloud-based procurement software tool that helps businesses manage their procurement process from requisition to payment. It includes supplier management, contract management, and spending analysis.
Request for Proposal
RFP or request for proposal is the procurement phase where you create documents as part of an announcement that you, the procurement manager, intend to create a project or task that requires the procurement or sourcing of important services or products.
Now, maybe you’re wondering, what is the relationship between RFP and supplier evaluation? Well, supplier evaluation is a part of the RFP process. The RFP process is mainly about requesting proposals from suppliers about what they can offer and how they can fit your organization’s procurement process. Supplier evaluation is the act itself of evaluating those proposals when you have received them.
Additionally, RFP is the phase where the organization might receive many different bids and proposals from many different suppliers. In this case, utilizing supplier evaluation is the best way you can use to make sure that you find the best supplier who participated in the bidding process and is aligned with the organization’s goals and specifications.
Conclusion
Supplier evaluation is the process of assessing suppliers and their products to see if they meet your company’s key metrics, criteria, and other specifications. Moreover, a supplier evaluation form is a document that is used as a tool to initiate the supplier evaluation process.
Furthermore, everything from your supplier’s information to their ethical and sustainability considerations should be included in the supplier evaluation form so that you would not miss anything that may hinder a smooth-flowing collaboration. However, do keep in mind that evaluating them can be done in multiple ways like giving out scorecards, discussing with them personally, or sending out questionnaires for a more qualitative approach.
Nonetheless, it gets the job done, especially when you use software that is more centralized and equipped to streamline the entire evaluation process, and is an important factor to assess whether or not your suppliers are great to collaborate with in a longer period of time.
Frequentlyasked questions
What is supplier evaluation?
Supplier evaluation is the process of evaluating and assessing suppliers and their products or services to analyze whether they meet your organization’s metrics, criteria, or specifications.
What is the supplier evaluation form?
A supplier evaluation form is a tool or document used by businesses and organizations to initiate the supplier evaluation process. It rates the performance and sustainability of the potential suppliers and is and should be a typical part of the procurement process.
How to evaluate suppliers?
Evaluating suppliers should be done by gathering all your essential documents, filling out supplier details, setting criteria and metrics, rating their performance, and calculating their overall rating to see who among the suppliers is aligned with what your organization needs.
About the author
My name is Marijn Overvest, I’m the founder of Procurement Tactics. I have a deep passion for procurement, and I’ve upskilled over 200 procurement teams from all over the world. When I’m not working, I love running and cycling.
