Completing your supplier profile
What ARDF needs on your record, why it decides whether you are invited to quote, and how to put it there — step by step.
Registering on the African Relief and Development Foundation Supplier Portal and being approved means one thing: we know who your business is. It does not yet mean you can be invited to quote. That is decided by validation — our procurement team reading your profile and your uploaded documents and recording that your business can do the work it would be asked to price.
When a requisition is raised, procurement builds the shortlist by filtering the supplier register on industry, service category and specialization, and only validated suppliers can be invited to an RFQ or submit against an open tender. A supplier whose classification is blank is not in that list at all — not passed over, simply not found.
What is expected of every supplier
Two halves, both on one page of the portal, and both visible to you as a checklist that ticks itself off as you save.
- Your profile — contact person, email, phone, TIN number, bank details, the industry you operate in, your specializations and a description of your key services.
- Your documents — registration certificate, TIN/tax certificate, bank confirmation and company profile, plus any licence your line of business requires.
A missing item is not an automatic refusal. Our reviewer may still qualify a small local trader who has no formal company profile document. But nobody can validate a record that says nothing, and that is where most registered suppliers currently stand.
How to update your profile
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Sign in to the portal
Go to https://www.ardf-ss.org/supplier/login and sign in with the email address you registered with. If the password will not come back to you, use Forgot password — you will be emailed a link to choose a new one, and it lasts one hour. Do not register a second time; a duplicate record cannot be invited to quote.
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Open Profile
It is the last item in the menu down the left-hand side, below “My Submissions”. Everything below happens on that single page. Each section saves on its own, so you can complete one today and the rest when the paperwork is to hand.
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Fill in Contact Details and Bank Details
Company name, contact person, phone, email, address and TIN number, then bank name, account name, account number, branch and SWIFT code. The bank details are what a payment is issued against, so they must match your bank confirmation letter exactly — a mismatch is the most common reason a payment is held. Press SAVE PROFILE.
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Complete Industry, specializations & key services
This is the section that puts you in front of a buyer, and it is the one almost every registered supplier has left blank. Choose the industry you operate in, tick every specialization your business genuinely holds, and describe your key services in your own words — what you supply, at what scale, and where you can deliver. Tick what you really do rather than everything on the list: a supplier that claims all of it tells a buyer nothing. Press Save profile.
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Upload your documents
Scroll to Supplier Documents at the bottom of the page. There is a separate box for each document and you attach your file to the box that matches it. Where a document expires — a licence, a tax certificate — enter the expiry date beside it, because an expired document is treated as missing rather than as evidence. A clear phone photograph is accepted; a PDF or scan is better. Each file may be up to 20 MB. Press UPLOAD DOCUMENTS.
Uploaded something wrong? The table above the upload boxes lists what you have sent, with a Replace button on each row.
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Check the Validation status panel
Near the top of the same page are two columns of ticks, Profile and Documents, showing precisely what we hold and what is still outstanding. They update as you save. When every line is ticked there is nothing more for you to do — your record goes forward to procurement for a decision, and the outcome, including the reason if we cannot validate you, appears on that same panel.
What each document is
| Document | What to upload |
|---|---|
|
Registration Certificate Expected of every supplier
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Your certificate of incorporation or business registration, as issued by the registrar. It shows the business legally exists under the name you registered with. |
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TIN/Tax Certificate Expected of every supplier
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Your TIN or tax registration certificate. The TIN on it must be the one typed into your profile. |
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Bank Confirmation Expected of every supplier
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A letter or stamped statement header from your bank confirming the account name, number and branch. Payments are made only to the account the bank has confirmed. |
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Company Profile Expected of every supplier
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A short company profile: what you supply, how long you have traded, your capacity, and past clients or contracts if you have them. |
| License | Any operating or trade licence your line of business requires. Set its expiry date when you upload it — an expired licence counts as missing. |
If something does not work
- The password is not accepted. Use the Forgot password link rather than registering again — a second registration creates a duplicate record that cannot be invited to quote.
- A file is refused. It is larger than 20 MB. Photograph the pages separately, or save the scan at a lower resolution.
- The reminder reached the wrong person. Sign in, correct the contact email under Contact Details, and pass this page to whoever handles your ARDF account.
- You no longer wish to be on the register. Write to us at the address below and we will remove you.
This page covers your profile and documents. The full Supplier Portal manual explains every screen — how ARDF buys, how to quote on an RFQ, bid for a tender, acknowledge an order, and invoice for what you delivered.
Questions we are asked
Does changing my profile lose the work I have already been given?
No. Purchase orders, contracts, GRNs and invoices already on your record are unaffected. Re-classifying your industry or specializations does return a completed validation to “not yet validated”, because the earlier decision was made against different work — but that is a review, not a penalty, and nothing you have already won is withdrawn.
How long does validation take?
It is done by a person in the Procurement Department, not automatically, so it depends on the queue. What you control is the wait before it can start: a record with nothing in it cannot be reviewed at all.
Must I send anything by post or by hand?
No. Everything is done on the portal, and uploads are held against your record. Please do not email documents in place of uploading them — they will not reach the reviewer's screen.