How do you keep an approved products list for each customer?

This method is for a chemical maker or distributor that sells grades a customer has formally approved for its own process or product. It does not cover a buyer's approved supplier list, or how a customer runs its own qualification trial.

What do you need before building a customer approved products list?

Before building a customer approved products list, you need the approval documents themselves, your current sales list per customer, and one agreed record for each approval. An approval is whatever the customer sent to say a grade may be used: a letter, an email from their quality or engineering team, a signed qualification report or a part approval warrant (illustrative examples).

Gather three things first:

• Every approval document you can find for each customer, from email, shared drives and sales files, with the date it was issued.

• The list of products each customer has bought in the past two years, from the order system, so you can see which shipped grades have no approval on file (illustrative period).

• The customer's own rules on approval and change notice, from supply agreements, quality agreements or the customer's supplier manual. The IPEC Federation recommends that excipient suppliers and users refer to its Significant Change Guide as the basis for notification requirements in quality, supply and technical agreements (IPEC Europe, 2023), and many industrial customers write similar clauses.

Decide also who owns the list. One named person, usually in quality or technical service, keeps it current; sales can read it but should not edit it.

How do you build an approved products list for each customer step by step?

You build an approved products list for each customer in four steps, finished for one customer before moving to the next.

1. File each approval. Save the approval document as received, under the customer's name, with the date of issue in the file name. One approval document can cover several grades; give each grade its own line on the list.

2. Record its conditions. For each line, write the grade, the producing plant, the customer's application or part, the customer specification and its revision, and the SDS and TDS revision dates that applied when the customer approved (see the conditions section below).

3. Flag changes that need re-approval. Write next to each line which kinds of change the customer must hear about before shipment, taken from the customer's agreement or, where it is silent, from the change list in this post.

4. Check before shipping. Compare every new order line with the list: same customer, same grade, same plant, same use. An order that does not match goes to the list owner before it is released.

What conditions does a customer product approval carry?

A customer product approval carries the conditions that were true when the customer tested and accepted the grade: which product, made where, against which specification, for which use. Change any of them and the customer may no longer consider the product approved.

Record these conditions on every line of the list:

• Grade: the exact product name and code, not the product family.

• Plant: the producing site, because the same grade from a second plant can differ in raw materials and process. The IPEC Significant Change Guide notes that a new site of manufacture "can result in raw material changes" (IPEC Federation, 2023).

• Application: the customer's process, line or part the approval covers. An approval for one plant or product line of the customer does not extend to another unless the approval says so.

• Specification: the customer specification number and revision the grade was approved against.

• Document revisions: the SDS and TDS revision dates at approval. A new SDS revision is a signal to check whether composition changed.

• Validity: any expiry date, trial quantity limit or condition such as "approved for trial only" (illustrative wording).

Copy each condition from the approval document itself. Where the document is silent, write "not stated" rather than assuming.

Which changes need customer re-approval of an approved product?

The changes that need customer re-approval of an approved product are the ones the customer's agreement names; where the agreement is silent, a change of raw material source, producing site, process or test method is the usual trigger. The table below gathers triggers from two published change guides; it decides which column of your list to check when a change notice arrives.

The site change row matters most for distributors: when a maker moves a grade to another plant, the IPEC guide treats a production site change for pharmaceutical excipients as notifiable, and the list shows which customers approved the old plant. ISO 9001:2026 also has a clause on control of changes for production (ISO 9001:2026, clause 8.5.6), which an ISO 9001 certified supplier applies to these changes.

The PPAP list comes from automotive supply chains and the IPEC list from pharmaceutical excipients. Neither binds a customer outside those sectors, but both show which changes customers in regulated supply chains expect to hear about first.

How do you stop shipping a product the customer has not approved?

You stop shipping a product the customer has not approved by checking every order line against the approved products list before release, and holding any line that does not match. The check needs four matches: customer, grade, plant and use.

Run the check when the order is confirmed, before a delivery date is promised, so a hold does not surprise the warehouse.

When an order line does not match, the list owner decides one of three outcomes:

• Ship as approved: the mismatch is a typing error, such as a pack size code, and the grade, plant and use are the same.

• Ask the customer: the grade is right but the plant or use differs, or a change notice is open. Hold the line until the customer confirms in writing, and file the confirmation as a new approval document.

• Do not ship: the grade has no approval for that customer, or the approval has expired.

Substitution is the case most often missed. When the approved grade is short and someone offers a similar grade, that grade needs its own approval before it ships, however close the TDS values look. ISO 9001:2026 keeps a clause on review of requirements for products and services (ISO 9001:2026, clause 8.2.3), and an unapproved substitute is a requirement that was never reviewed with the customer.

Where should customer approval letters for approved products be stored?

Customer approval letters for approved products should be stored in one place per customer, next to the other documents you have sent to and received from that customer, not in the inbox of the salesperson who received them. An approval kept in one person's email is lost when that person leaves or changes role.

Keep the original document as received, unchanged, and give it a file name with the customer, the grade and the date of issue. Link each line of the approved products list to its document, so anyone checking an order can open the approval in one step. When a customer withdraws or replaces an approval, keep the old document, mark it superseded, and record the date.

The approval belongs to the customer record that also holds specifications, quotes, test reports and visit notes; what that record should hold beyond a CRM entry is covered in what a chemical distributor should track that a CRM does not. Lubinpla keeps approval letters as customer deliverables and shows them next to the project records of which products the customer uses, though it does not check shipments against approvals automatically.

How do you check a customer approved products list is current?

You check a customer approved products list is current by running six checks on each line: approval on file, grade and plant recorded, application recorded, document revisions at approval, changes since approval, and order match. Run them for every customer once a year and for one customer whenever a change notice or new order type arrives (illustrative frequency).

The table below decides whether an order for each line can ship as approved.

The change since approval row needs the most care: a site or raw material change makes the line pending until the customer replies, even if every other check passes.

Record the date of each check on the list itself, next to the owner's initials, so the next person can see how old the last review is. A line that fails a check stays on the list marked pending, which keeps the customer's approval history in one place instead of losing it with a deleted line.

Common mistakes with customer approved products lists

The most common mistakes with customer approved products lists are recording the product family instead of the grade, leaving out the plant, and treating an old approval as permanent.

• Family instead of grade. "Approved: hydraulic oils" on a list lets any grade ship (illustrative). Each line names one grade code.

• No plant. The same grade from a second plant may need customer notification, as the IPEC guide's site rule for pharmaceutical excipients shows (IPEC Federation, 2023). Without the plant on the line, nobody can tell.

• Approval as permanent. Approvals tied to a specification revision may lapse in practice when the customer revises the specification. Record the revision and check it.

• Verbal approvals. A phone call from the customer's buyer is not an approval. Ask for it in writing and file it.

• Change notices sent but not tracked. A notice sent without a reply leaves the line in doubt. Mark the line pending until the customer answers.