Many buyers need to track the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) or Historically Under-utilized Business (HUB) status of the Vendors that are participating in procurement events. There are a number of ways to set up the features in Bonfire’s Vendor Management module to help buyers track DBE and HUB statuses using a streamlined process.
This article walks through a number of ways to collect DBE and HUB information from Vendors so that you can collect and store all of the vendor diversity information you need directly in Bonfire. (An introduction to Vendor Registration can be found in our Vendor Management - Registration Settings article.)
Vendor Types
When Vendor Types are set up as part of your customized vendor registration process, Vendors are prompted to identify themselves as one of the predefined types of Vendors when they register on your Bonfire portal. Vendor Types are fully customizable based on your organization’s preferences, and one way they can be set up is to collect information on a Vendor’s DBE or HUB status.
A few examples of Vendor Types you could use to track a Vendor’s DBE or HUB status include:
- Certified as Minority Owned
- Certified as Disability Owned
- Certified as Woman Owned
- Certified as a Small Business
- Not DBE or HUB Certified
In order to create a Vendor Type, open up the Registration Settings section on the Vendor Management page. In here, you will see a Vendor Types tab which houses all of the Vendor types that you have created.
To begin adding Vendor types, click on Add a Vendor Type:
As a final step, if you would like to require every Vendor who registers on your portal to identify their Vendor Type, you can enable the Mandatory Vendor Types preference on the Registration Settings - Preferences tab:
Vendor Registration Documents
Now that you have created a few Vendor Types, you are able to require Vendors to upload Vendor Documents that are related to the Vendor Type they picked during registration. Adding Vendor Documents allows you to ask Vendors to upload certain documents before they can create a submission and participate in an opportunity (such as proof of insurance, a W-8/W-9 form, or a Labour Law certificate).
To help track and validate a Vendor’s DBE or HUB certification, you can set up Vendor Documents that prove a Vendor is certified. A few examples of Vendor Documents that would provide proof of certification include:
- Proof of Minority Owned Business Certification
- Proof of Disability Owned Business Certification
- Proof of Woman Owned Business Certification
- Proof of Small Business Certification
To set up Vendor Documents on your Bonfire portal, open the Vendor Documents tab under the Registrations Settings section. To begin adding Vendor documents, click on Add a Vendor Document.
When you are adding a Vendor Document, you are able to specify which Vendor Types the document applies to. For the purposes of our example, Bonfire recommends matching the Vendor Document to the corresponding Vendor Type (ie. “Proof of Minority Owned Business Certification" document applies to the “Certified as Minority Owned” vendor type etc.). Setting the document as Required and providing a brief Description are also recommended to ensure that Vendors cannot skip the document upload step and that you receive the document you were expecting.
Vendor Management Observers
After your Vendor Types and Vendor Documents are set up similarly to the examples above, Vendors will be required to identify and provide proof of their DBE or HUB status when they register on your Bonfire portal. This is great!
As a final step, you may wish to share this vendor data with other members of your organization so that they have access to view Vendors’ DBE or HUB certifications directly in Bonfire. Vendor Management - Organization Observer access can be granted to any member of your organization, which gives them read-only access to the vendor management module. If you are interested in adding Vendor Management - Organization Observers to your portal please reach out to your Customer Success Manager for assistance.
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