Customer questionnaire · prequalification · tender schedule
The customer sent a safety questionnaire. Here is how to answer it.
You are good at the work. A new customer, or one you are trying to win, has sent a supplier compliance questionnaire, a prequalification form or a tender schedule asking for your WHS management system, your policies, your registers and terms you have never had to know. This page explains what each question really wants, what to send, and how PolicySystem lets you paste the question in and get the answer and the PDF back.
Why the questionnaire exists
Large customers, head contractors, councils and facilities managers carry a legal duty to check that the contractors they engage manage safety. Their procurement team turns that duty into a questionnaire. The person who wrote it is usually a safety or procurement officer working from a standard list, which is why the same twenty questions appear in slightly different words on every form. They are not testing you. They need documents to file so they can award you the work.
The three-step answer
- Build the system first. Describe the business in a ten-minute questionnaire of your own: legal name, ABN, industry, states, headcount and the high-risk work you do. AI writes the WHS (or OHS) policy and the procedures for your risks as controlled drafts. You read and approve them.
- Make it true. Add your people and their tickets to the training register, your chemicals to the SDS register, and open the incident register. Now the answers are facts, not promises.
- Paste each question into Ask. It answers in plain English from your issued policies, cites the policy code, drafts the reply you paste back, and names the PDF to attach. Copy the answer as an email, export the PDFs, upload or send.
What the questions really mean
The table covers the questions that appear on almost every Australian supplier questionnaire, what the customer is actually asking for, and what a small business sends.
| They asked | They mean | You send |
|---|---|---|
| Provide a copy of your current WHS policy signed by senior management. | A one to two page statement of commitment, signed and dated, with a version and review date. | POL-001 WHS Policy (OHS in Victoria) as a controlled PDF. |
| Describe your hazard identification and risk assessment process. | How you find hazards before work starts, rate them, apply controls and record it. | Risk management procedure and a hazard register export. |
| Do you maintain a hazardous substances register and SDS? | A list of the chemicals you use with a current safety data sheet for each. | Hazardous chemicals procedure and the SDS register export. |
| Evidence of worker induction and competency, including licences. | Who has been inducted, which tickets they hold, and when they expire. | Training and competency procedure and the training register export. |
| Outline your incident reporting and investigation procedure. | What happens when someone gets hurt or nearly does, and how you stop it repeating. | Incident and near miss procedure; incident register summary if asked for statistics. |
| Do you hold ISO 9001 or ISO 45001 certification? | A JAS-ANZ certificate. If you do not hold one, they usually accept a documented system and a plan. | Honest answer: not certified, working towards, system in place. Attach the policy pack index and latest internal audit score. |
| How do you consult with workers on health and safety matters? | Toolbox talks, meetings, a way for workers to raise concerns, and records of it. | Consultation procedure and recent toolbox talk records from the evidence register. |
| Provide your emergency response procedure. | What people do in a fire, medical emergency or spill, and who is trained for it. | Emergency preparedness procedure. |
When the honest answer is "not yet"
Some questions will land on a gap. Ask does not bluff. It tells you the policies do not cover the question, points at the closest one, and drafts the missing wording as an update or a new policy for you to approve. Approve it, and the answer becomes true. Customers respect "we have a documented system and here is the policy we issued this week" far more than a vague yes that falls apart at the site audit.
The words you will meet
- PCBU. Person conducting a business or undertaking. That is you, the employer.
- WHS and OHS. Work health and safety. Victoria says OHS. Same thing.
- SWMS. Safe Work Method Statement, a task-level document for high-risk construction work. Different from your company system.
- SDS. Safety data sheet, the supplier's document for a chemical.
- CAPA. Corrective and preventive action. How you fix and prevent problems.
- Document control. Version, owner, review date, draft versus issued on every document.
- Prequalification. Being approved as a supplier before work is awarded, often through CM3, LinkSafe or Avetta.
- ISO 9001 and 45001. International standards for quality and safety systems. Certification is a separate step with a JAS-ANZ body.
More on the system behind the answers: WHS management system, CM3 and prequal packs, and what the law actually requires of a small business.
Where to next
WHS management system · CM3 pack · WHS policy template · ISO for tenders · WHS requirements · FAQ
Common questions.
Once the system exists, yes. That is why the order matters: describe the business, approve the AI-written policies, put your people, chemicals and tickets on the registers, then answer the questionnaire from what is now true. Ask only answers from your issued documents, so it cannot claim something you do not have. If a question has no honest answer yet, it says so and drafts the policy you need.
Every policy in your system has a code and a title (POL-005 Incident and Near Miss Procedure, for example). When Ask answers, it cites the policies it drew on and you export those as controlled PDFs with your logo. Register exports (SDS, training, incidents) are attached the same way.
Paste the question anyway. Ask explains what the customer is really asking for in plain English before it answers. SWMS, JSA, SDS, CAPA, PCBU, HSR, notifiable incident, hierarchy of controls, document control: it translates the term and points at the part of your system that covers it.
No. You copy the answer and upload the PDFs yourself, whether that is CM3, LinkSafe, Avetta, a client portal or an email. What it removes is the part you were dreading: working out what they mean and what to say.
The documents take an afternoon. Adding your people, tickets and chemicals to the registers takes another hour or two. Most owners are answering the questionnaire the same week. Making the system real, with entries in the registers over time, is what keeps the answers true when the customer audits you later.