Re: If you care at all about your supplier partners, please do not do this one thing

If you care at all about your supplier partners, please do not do this one thing:

Don't have your credentialling company send a $$ request to suppliers unless you actually want to use them.

We often get an email that goes something like this: "XYZ Management, Inc. has selected you to be one of our Preferred Vendor Partners. Preferred Vendor Partners may offer goods and services to one or more of our locations."

I ask my team if we have any orders outstanding with them or any contact at all. Nope! We did something with them in the past, so now we are listed as some potential supplier, but there is nothing in the works.

This basically means that the management company has authorized, knowingly or unknowingly, the compliance company to extract money out of the supplier without any intention of even considering the supplier.

How many times do these get paid by suppliers who are essentially tricked into thinking it is a necessary payment for compliance or that the management company is actually considering them?

Conversations about this issue has led me to believe that management companies sometimes have no idea that this is happening - that the compliance company is using their name to generate revenue.

But that is not an excuse - management companies should be aware of when their suppliers are doing something shady on their behalf. And frankly, they should be livid to know that their compliance company is trying to drive revenue using their name.

What vendor credentialing company are you referring to? I think it would help to better understand if it’s a specific provider problem.

Must be talking about Realpage Vendor Credentialing. I don’t think it is done out of malice. I’m sure most property managers don’t even know that vendors and suppliers have to pay for this service. Paying for Vendor Verification is most helpful when you know a deal is going to go through, or if you are specifically trying to target a specific management company, at multiple properties.

All of them. I always get, you have to be compliant before we can use you. So if I want them to be able to use us if the need arises we have to get signed up. Because it takes a week to a month to get compliance. It’s $79-135 every time from what I’ve seen. But I don’t know a way around it.