Your first orders of storage baskets from China are in the warehouse. Most goods passed receiving checks, one delivery arrived late, and the supplier settled a packing claim. Purchasing wants to stop treating every reorder as a new supplier trial. Finance remembers a price change that appeared after approval. Before adding the factory to your regular buying list, bring those accounts together. A continuing relationship deserves a decision based on what happened, including the problems people already worked around.
The baskets and orders are fictional examples, not customer transactions. This article is general information, not legal, technical or accounting advice. Three deliveries are a scene, not a qualification threshold. Qualified advisers must assess the product, supplier evidence and applicable requirements.
Compare the promises with the actual orders
Use the accepted version of each purchase, rather than the salesperson's latest description. For each lot, connect the agreed product and site to the delivered goods, promised dates to actual milestones, and agreed commercial terms to the final charge. Explain any accepted change. An on-time delivery of an unapproved revision should not appear as an uncomplicated success.
Purchasing may have recorded dispatch while the warehouse recorded arrival. Make the date definitions visible before comparing performance. Quality should distinguish goods accepted on arrival from goods released only after sorting or repair. Finance should identify unresolved charges, credits and payment allocations. A paid invoice does not establish that the goods were accepted.
The trial-lot comparison guide covers choosing between candidates. This review concerns the history of the supplier you have actually used. It need not reopen a competition to establish whether your original reasons for choosing that supplier still hold.
Include how the supplier handled exceptions
For the late basket delivery, find the original commitment, when the factory disclosed the delay and what recovery it agreed. Did your buyer learn early enough to change customer plans? Did the supplier's explanation match production and shipment records? Describe the event without turning one delay into a claim about every future order.
A claim settlement also needs context. Record the accepted defect, the agreed remedy and whether it was completed. Then identify any separate quality action still open. The repeat-defect guide explains why a refund cannot establish that the next lot will be acceptable.
A useful review describes consequences: extra inspection, local sorting, changed delivery commitments or unresolved supplier charges. Avoid a single score that hides a safety concern beneath several punctual shipments. Your team should decide which concerns prevent approval and which can be managed within a restricted buying scope.
Make the approval specific enough to use
For these fictional baskets, the team might approve the existing product revision at the reviewed site, with a purchase limit set internally and an agreed inspection arrangement. That decision would say nothing about a new material, another factory or a different product category.
A buyer's review record could contain:
| Decision field | What the team records |
|---|---|
| Reviewed population | Orders, revisions, production sites and evidence reviewed |
| Actual performance | Delivery, accepted quality and commercial outcomes |
| Open exceptions | Unresolved claims, corrective actions and disputed charges |
| Permitted scope | Products, site and conditions covered by the approval |
| Responsibility | Named purchasing, quality and finance decisions |
| Reconsideration | Review date and events requiring earlier reassessment |
These are editorial purchasing fields, not a prescribed supplier standard. The people responsible for the product and business risk determine the evidence and conditions.
QIMA's supplier-audit guidance describes audits against defined criteria and follow-up on findings. It is a service provider's guidance, not a universal approval score or proof that a particular factory is qualified. Where the order history leaves a capability question unanswered, an appropriately scoped assessment may help your specialist answer it.
Define when regular buying stops being routine
A change of site, an unexplained product revision, repeated failures or a material change in terms can justify reopening an internal approval. State who receives the evidence and who can restrict future buying. An employee should not discover the restriction only when the next deposit request reaches finance.
Distinguish a decision about proposed purchases from obligations under orders already accepted. Internal removal from an approved list does not itself cancel those orders. Article 35 of the official CISG text addresses conformity with the contract; counsel must assess applicability and the rights available in the actual purchase.
If the supplier offers different credit terms as the relationship grows, review them separately. The repeat-order payment-terms guide addresses that negotiation. Regular-supplier status should not silently change when payment becomes due.
Keep each new purchase accountable
The final decision should let your buyer explain why this supplier may be used again, within what limits and with which unresolved conditions. Each new order still needs its own accepted specification, commercial terms and authorised payment instruction. Schedule the next relationship review while the evidence is current.
Use pay an invoice to ask A2vanta about a documented supplier payment before funding. Supplier qualification remains with the buyer and qualified specialists. Payment handling does not audit the factory or approve a continuing supply relationship.