In procurement, first impressions matter. Supplier onboarding is not just a box to tick – it’s your chance to set the tone for the relationship, ensure compliance and create momentum for long-term value.

And yet, for many organisations, supplier onboarding still involves clunky spreadsheets and back-and-forth emails. This slows teams down, frustrates suppliers and opens the door to risk.

We think differently.

Why Supplier Onboarding Deserves More Attention

Onboarding plays a critical role in shaping the long-term effectiveness of your supplier relationships and by extension, the success of your procurement function as a whole.

Done well, supplier onboarding acts as a catalyst. It accelerates time to value, reduces operational risk and improves the way suppliers engage with your organisation. And yet, it’s one of the most overlooked stages of the procurement lifecycle.

Here’s why supplier onboarding should be front and centre in your digital procurement strategy:

Faster Time-to-Contract

A well-designed onboarding process dramatically shortens the time it takes to move a supplier from initial selection to active status. In many organisations, this stage is a major bottleneck – suppliers are selected through an RFP or tender, only to be delayed by manual compliance checks, unclear processes or missing documentation.

By streamlining onboarding or capturing crucial information during the tender process, you eliminate those friction points. Suppliers can upload documentation in a central portal, complete digital forms and move through approval workflows without chasing or confusion. Internally, the procurement team gets instant visibility into where each supplier is in the process and who needs to act next.

Faster onboarding means quicker access to goods and services, reduced project delays and a more agile procurement function. In sectors like construction, public services and healthcare where timing can directly impact service delivery, shaving days or even weeks off the onboarding cycle makes a tangible difference.

Risk Mitigation

Supplier onboarding is your first and best opportunity to mitigate risk. It’s where you establish that a supplier meets the legal, financial and compliance standards required to work with your organisation. This includes everything from confirming tax compliance, highlighting Politically Exposed Persons and verifying bank details to checking insurance coverage, cyber security protocols and sanction checks.

When onboarding is inconsistent or informal, these checks can be skipped or performed unevenly leaving your organisation exposed to regulatory breaches or reputational damage. On the other hand, a structured, rule-based onboarding process embeds these checks into the system itself.

Modern supplier onboarding tools ensure that every supplier must meet a specific criteria and provide the same documentation and that nothing progresses until that happens. This not only reduces the likelihood of onboarding high-risk suppliers but also creates a digital audit trail that’s essential for internal governance and external audits.

Stronger Supplier Relationships

It’s easy to forget that onboarding is the supplier’s first real experience of working with your organisation – and as with any first impression, it sets the tone for the relationship to come. A clunky, confusing process signals to suppliers that doing business with you might be frustrating or slow.

In contrast, a seamless, well-structured onboarding experience tells suppliers that you’re organised, efficient and invested in creating a smooth path to partnership. It communicates that you value their time, that you’re aligned on expectations and that you’ve invested in tools to make collaboration easy.

This matters because suppliers are not passive players – the best ones have choices. If you’re serious about creating strategic partnerships with your key suppliers then the onboarding experience is where that credibility starts and where you lay the foundations for value through collaboration. It also reduces unnecessary conflict later in the relationship. When suppliers understand the process, have clear documentation and experience transparency from the outset, it lays the groundwork for trust and open communication.

Internal Time Savings

Manual onboarding isn’t just frustrating for suppliers. It’s a huge time drain for internal teams. Procurement, legal, information security, compliance, data protection and finance approvers don’t need to be chasing missing documents, fielding supplier queries, or re-keying data between unconnected systems.

That’s valuable time that could be spent on higher-value activities: strategic sourcing, supplier innovation, ESG improvements, or data analysis. Instead, teams are stuck managing administrative backlogs.

Digitised supplier onboarding automates repetitive tasks and reduces human touchpoints. It sends automated alerts, routes tasks to the right person and consolidates all supplier data in one accessible platform. As a result, teams can focus their time and attention where it’s most needed – not on spreadsheet wrangling or document collation.

Don’t Let Onboarding Be an Afterthought

When onboarding is done poorly, it sends the wrong signals and introduces risk before a single PO is issued. Suppliers feel undervalued. Compliance gaps emerge and the procurement team ends up firefighting problems that could have been avoided with a better system.

But when onboarding is done right, it acts as the foundation for everything that follows – smoother projects, stronger supplier partnerships and as a result – more resilient supply chains.

Want to see what a modern onboarding process looks like in action? Watch our demo video and discover how Atamis’ supplier onboarding tools can help your team onboard faster, reduce risk and set up suppliers – and your procurements – for success.

The Common Pitfalls of Supplier Onboarding (and How to Avoid Them)

In working with hundreds of procurement teams across the UK, we’ve seen the same pain points surface time and again. No matter the size or sector of the organisation, supplier onboarding is frequently hampered by outdated processes and inefficiencies that create drag across the entire source-to-contract journey.

Here are the most common challenges – and why modernising them isn’t just a nice-to-have, but a strategic imperative:

1. Manual, Email-Based Processes

Despite advancements in digital procurement, many supplier onboarding processes are still stuck in the past. Forms are sent as Word documents or excel files, with instructions buried in lengthy email threads. Suppliers are often asked to download, fill out, sign and return paperwork via email, only to have procurement teams manually re-key the data into internal systems.

This reliance on manual methods makes the process slow for everyone involved, inconsistent and prone to error. Key documents such as insurance certificates or ESG policies can easily get lost in overflowing inboxes. Version control becomes a nightmare when multiple revisions are flying around and team members may not have access to the latest information.

Worse still, these processes don’t scale. What might seem manageable with a handful of suppliers quickly becomes a bottleneck when managing dozens or hundreds of vendors. The result? Onboarding delays, increased operational risk and valuable procurement time spent on low-value admin work instead of strategic supplier development.

2. Lack of Clear Workflows

Another major stumbling block is the absence of clearly defined onboarding workflows. In many organisations, it’s unclear who is responsible for reviewing specific pieces of information, approving supplier status or following up on missing documents.

Without a structured workflow, onboarding becomes disjointed. Procurement might be waiting on Finance. Legal might need to check the terms of a framework agreement. But unless responsibilities are formalised and tracked, things slip through the cracks. Suppliers get frustrated by long delays and internal stakeholders lose patience, becoming detractors from procurement.

Lack of clarity can also lead to non-compliance. If no one has formally signed off on a key requirement that gap can create significant regulatory exposure down the line.

Modern procurement software solves this by creating automated, rule-based workflows that route tasks to the right people, set deadlines and provide end-to-end transparency.

3. Supplier Frustration

For many suppliers, the onboarding process is their first proper experience of your organisation’s systems, communication style and responsiveness. When that experience is poor, it sticks.

Equally, many organisations now have aspirations to broaden their supplier pool and work with SMEs. These suppliers are often short on administrative capacity due to smaller teams and a messy, clunky onboarding process can hinder their ability to bid for your tender or engage with you. 

Procurement professionals work hard to build trust with their suppliers, but those efforts can be undermined if onboarding feels slow, disconnected or overly bureaucratic.

Investing in a supplier-friendly onboarding experience shows that you value your partners’ time, that you’re easy to do business with and that you understand what modern, efficient procurement looks like.

4. Inconsistent Compliance Checks

Perhaps the most critical risk of all is the inconsistency in compliance checks that arises when onboarding is manual or fragmented. In many organisations, the process for validating a supplier’s credentials is not standardised. Some suppliers may be onboarded with thorough due diligence, while others slip through with expired documents, incomplete declarations or unverifiable bank details.

This creates a compliance minefield. You may unknowingly onboard a supplier who doesn’t meet your anti-bribery policies, whose insurance coverage has lapsed or who can’t demonstrate their carbon reporting obligations. These pitfalls have the potential to expose your organisation to legal, reputational and financial risk.

It’s not just about ticking boxes. Compliance during onboarding lays the foundation for responsible risk mitigation and meeting compliance requirements –  especially in industries with complex supply chains or strict public procurement rules.

The Solution: Digitised, Rule-Based Supplier Onboarding

These challenges aren’t inevitable. Leading procurement teams across the UK are transforming supplier onboarding from a tedious necessity into a competitive advantage.

By digitising the process through a supplier portal you create a scalable, auditable and user-friendly experience for both internal teams and suppliers. You gain better data, reduce risk and faster onboarding – all while making it easier for suppliers to do business with you.

What a Modern Supplier Onboarding Experience Looks Like

If you’ve had a chance to watch our video walkthrough, you’ll have seen just how smooth and seamless supplier onboarding can be when it’s thoughtfully designed for both the buyer and the supplier. In the past, onboarding was often treated as an administrative task – something static, manual and separate from the wider procurement ecosystem. Today, procurement teams are flipping that narrative and treating onboarding as a strategic touchpoint that sets the tone for everything that follows.

So, what does a modern, best-practice onboarding process look like?

Bringing It All Together

With our supplier portal, the onboarding experience is not just efficient – it’s intuitive.

By transforming onboarding from a weak link into a strategic asset, you set your suppliers and your procurement function up for long-term success.

Want to see the difference in action? Get in touch to book a personalised walkthrough tailored to your organisation’s needs.

Moving from Process to Partnership

Ultimately, onboarding is the beginning of a relationship. If you want suppliers to be proactive, responsive and aligned with your values then the onboarding experience must reflect that.

It’s not just about collecting paperwork. It’s about setting expectations, establishing transparency and showing your suppliers that your organisation is easy to work with.