A customer has told you to register with Achilles and complete a prequalification, and you're wondering what you've signed up for. Here's the straightforward version: Achilles runs supplier prequalification networks, organised as sector-specific communities. You join the community your buyer belongs to, complete a structured questionnaire about your company once, and every buyer in that community can use your profile to check you're a safe, qualified supplier to work with. Here's how it works and how to get through it efficiently.
What Achilles is
Achilles operates buyer-supplier networks for procurement-heavy sectors — utilities, energy, oil & gas, construction, rail, mining and similar. Each network is a community: a group of large buyers in one sector or region who have agreed on a shared prequalification standard. Buyers in the community require their suppliers to register, and a supplier's completed profile is then visible to all the buyers in that community.
That "prequalify once, be visible to every buyer in the network" model is the point. Instead of filling in a separate PQQ for each customer, you maintain one Achilles profile and it serves all the community's buyers. It's closer to a prequalification and risk-management network than a sustainability score like EcoVadis — Achilles is checking that you're a legitimate, capable, compliant supplier across several dimensions, of which ESG is one.
The best-known example is UVDB, the Achilles community for the UK utilities sector. More than 30 utilities buyers use it — including National Grid, Thames Water and SSE — so a single UVDB registration puts you in front of most of the major UK utilities procurement teams at once. Other communities cover other sectors and regions, and your buyer's invitation will tell you which one applies to you.
How the process works
The supplier journey has a consistent shape across communities:
- Join the relevant community. Your customer's invitation names it. You register with Achilles for that specific community, not for "Achilles" in general.
- Pay an annual subscription. Membership is a recurring cost, renewed yearly, and subscription levels vary by community and by supplier. Get the current figure from Achilles directly rather than relying on numbers you find elsewhere.
- Complete the prequalification questionnaire. You register under service codes — standardised categories describing the products and services you offer. Buyers search the community by those codes, so choose them carefully: too narrow and you're invisible for work you could do; too broad and you'll face requirements that don't apply to you.
- Undergo a Verify audit, if required. For higher-risk services, the questionnaire alone isn't enough. Achilles may require a Verify audit — an assessment covering corporate social responsibility, safety, health, environment and quality — carried out against your actual documents and practices, not just your self-declared answers.
One honest caveat: requirements differ from community to community. The questionnaire depth, whether an audit applies, and which subscription level you need all depend on the community and on what you supply. The invitation from your buyer names the community and the level they expect — treat that, not a generic checklist, as your specification.
What the questionnaire asks for
The exact content depends on the community, but Achilles prequalification typically gathers:
- Company information — legal entity, structure, ownership, financial basics.
- Health, safety & environment (HSE) — policies, safety statistics, incident history, environmental management. HSE is heavily weighted in sectors like utilities, energy and construction.
- Insurance — current certificates (employer's/public/professional liability as relevant).
- Quality and certifications — ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and sector-specific accreditations.
- ESG / sustainability — environmental policy, carbon/energy data, labour and human-rights policies, ethics and anti-bribery, supplier code of conduct.
- Financial standing — accounts or credit information to show you're a stable trading partner.
- Compliance & legal — modern slavery statements, data protection, sanctions/anti-corruption where required.
Because higher-risk suppliers can be pushed into the Verify audit tier, the safe assumption is simple: answer as though everything you submit will be checked against evidence. If your safety statistics or policies wouldn't survive an auditor reading them alongside your documents, fix the documents first.
The subscription reality
Be aware going in: Achilles is a paid, annually renewing membership. You pay to join the community and you pay again each year to keep your profile live. Subscription levels vary — by community, by what you supply, and by the tier your buyer requires — so get the specific figure from Achilles or your customer rather than assuming.
The way to think about the cost: it's the price of qualifying for a whole sector's buyers, not one customer. Weigh the annual fee against the pipeline the community represents for you. If it's one marginal customer, ask them how firm the requirement is before paying; if it's your core market, it's a straightforward cost of doing business.
How to prepare
Before you start filling in fields, assemble your evidence pack:
- Insurance certificates — current and covering the required limits.
- HSE records — safety policy, incident/accident statistics, method statements or risk assessments, training logs.
- Certificates — ISO and any sector accreditations, all in date.
- Policies — environmental, health & safety, supplier code of conduct, anti-bribery, modern slavery, data protection.
- Financial documents — recent accounts or the details for a credit check.
- ESG data — basic energy and emissions figures, and any environmental targets.
And before you touch the questionnaire itself, settle your service codes. List what you actually deliver, in the buyer's language, and map it to the codes on offer — this ten-minute exercise determines which buyers ever see your profile.
Having the evidence pack ready turns the questionnaire from a multi-week chase into a data-entry session. If you're unsure which ESG figures you can actually stand behind, the carbon calculator helps you produce a defensible baseline.
Keep the profile live
Prequalification isn't one-and-done. Your Achilles profile has to stay current — expired insurance, lapsed certificates, or out-of-date safety statistics can drop your qualification status and cost you buyer visibility, and the subscription renews annually regardless. Set reminders to refresh documents before they expire, and update your ESG data annually.
Much of what Achilles asks for overlaps with what other buyers and platforms want. A reusable response system means the same policies, certificates and data feed Achilles, Avetta, EcoVadis and direct customer questionnaires — you maintain one source, not five. If your customer runs a different network, see the sibling guide on Avetta supplier compliance for how that model compares.
What not to do
- Don't register for the wrong community or codes. Confirm the community and level from your buyer's invitation, and pick service codes that match what you actually supply.
- Don't let documents lapse. An expired insurance certificate or ISO cert can silently drop your status.
- Don't invent HSE statistics. Safety data is exactly what a Verify audit examines. Report your real figures.
- Don't submit a thin ESG section. It's an easy place to lose marks; a basic policy and a real emissions figure beat blanks.
- Don't treat the subscription as the whole cost. Budget the time to keep the profile current, too.
The bottom line
Achilles is a network of sector prequalification communities: join the one your buyer names, pay the annual subscription, register under the right service codes, and complete one structured questionnaire — company, HSE, insurance, certificates, financials and ESG. Your profile then qualifies you with every buyer in that community, and higher-risk services may add a Verify audit on top. Assemble your evidence pack first, answer as if it will be verified, and keep the profile current so your qualification doesn't lapse.
Qualify once, keep every profile current from one place.
ESG Passport keeps your policies, certificates and ESG data organised and up to date — so maintaining your Achilles profile and answering the next buyer's questionnaire draws on one source.