How do I make a vendor onboarding form in Notion?

To make a Notion vendor onboarding form, create a Vendors database with one property per piece of information you need, add a Form view, and share it with “Anyone on the web with link”. Each vendor’s submission becomes a page in that database, ready for review. Keep tax ID numbers and bank details out of the form itself: route those through a secure channel and store only their status in Notion.

What a Notion vendor onboarding form should collect

A Notion vendor onboarding form should collect who the vendor is, how to reach them, what they’ll supply, and proof of the documents you need before the first payment. A university procurement checklist lists the usual set: legal name, trade name, tax ID, address, entity type, a tax form, payment details, insurance certificates and contacts.

A startup or agency paying a handful of suppliers needs only part of that list in the form. This Vendors database covers it:

Ask about data access early. A vendor that will touch customer data or your systems needs a security review. A design freelancer usually doesn’t, and the “Handles our data?” checkbox sorts the two.

How to build the vendor form in Notion

Notion’s built-in Form view turns database properties into questions. Notion’s forms help page says every member on every plan can create and use forms, and each question maps to a property.

1. Create a full-page database called Vendors with the properties above.
2. Click + next to your views and add a Form view. Use the desktop app or the web; forms can’t be built on a phone yet.
3. Add a question for each “Yes” row. Leave out W-9 received, Insurance expiry, Stage and Owner, since only your team sets those.
4. Mark legal name, contact email and entity type as required.
5. Add a short description at the top: what the form is for, what happens next, and that you’ll never ask for bank details by email.
6. Open Share form, set “Who can fill out” to Anyone on the web with link, and copy the link into your vendor welcome email.

People outside your workspace, including people who don’t use Notion, can then submit. Their responses arrive as anonymous, which is why the contact name and email fields matter (the respondent property guide has the details).

Copied a vendor template from somewhere? Rebuild the form from scratch. Notion warns that a form inside a duplicated template can send responses to the template’s original creator instead of you.

Where W-9s, bank details and certificates should go

Sensitive vendor documents should not live as plain answers in a Notion vendor onboarding form. Anyone who can open the Vendors database can read every property on every page, and that usually includes most of your team.

• Form W-9. The IRS describes the W-9 as the way a payee gives their correct taxpayer identification number to whoever files an information return. For an individual that number is generally a social security number, per the requester instructions. Collect the signed form through your accounting tool or a restricted folder, then tick “W-9 received”.
• Bank details. The FBI’s business email compromise alert reports $55,499,915,582 in exposed losses from these scams worldwide. Its advice is to use secondary channels to verify requests for changes in account information. A form field invites the “please update our bank account” trick. Keep banking in your payment tool.
• Insurance certificate. Ask for a link to the PDF and record the expiry date yourself.

Get the W-9 before the first invoice. Per the IRS instructions, when a payee doesn’t furnish a TIN, the backup withholding rate is 24% of reportable payments.

Getting files when Notion forms can’t accept uploads

Native Notion forms can’t take file uploads as far as the official help page shows: it lists no file question type. Vendors still need somewhere to send certificates, licences and signed agreements.

1. A folder link. Create a restricted shared folder per vendor, or ask the vendor to share one, and collect its URL in the “Documents folder” property. It’s free, but you have to check each link opens.
2. A form builder with uploads. Notion form file uploads covers the trade-offs. nDBForms, for example, saves each file (up to 10 MB, on Pro) to your own Google Drive and writes the link into the Notion page, as described in the Google Drive upload guide.

The limitation: any third-party form tool keeps its own copy of responses. nDBForms stores one in its database for the dashboard and for retrying failed Notion writes. If your compliance team objects, use the folder link, which keeps documents entirely in your storage.

Different questions for contractors and companies

A solo contractor and a corporation need different paperwork. The procurement checklist notes that independent contractor vendors need a W-8 or W-9 depending on their status, while a company may also need certificates of insurance.

Native Notion forms handle this with conditional logic, but only on Business and Enterprise plans, and only on multiple-choice questions. You’d branch on “Entity type”: show insurance questions to companies and a residency question to individuals.

On Free or Plus, every vendor sees every question. Write “skip if not applicable” in the descriptions, or use a separate builder: nDBForms offers show/hide rules on Pro that work with any Notion plan, set up as in the conditional logic guide.

What happens after a vendor submits

The vendor onboarding form is only the intake step; the review is where onboarding actually happens.

• Get notified. Notion lets the form owner receive an email copy of each submission, and automations can post to Slack. See form email notifications for the options.
• Review on a board. Add a Board view grouped by Stage. New vendors land in “New”; move them to “Reviewing” once someone owns the check.
• Check the documents. Open the folder link, confirm the W-9 and certificate, tick the checkbox and fill in the insurance expiry.
• Approve or reject. Only then add the vendor to your payment tool.

Say a two-person agency hires a video editor. The editor fills in the form, picks “Individual”, and pastes a shared folder link. The owner gets the email, opens the folder, finds the W-9, ticks the box and moves the card to Approved. The bank details go straight into the payroll app, never into Notion.

My take: keep the form to about ten questions and do the paperwork in a second step. Vendors abandon long forms, and an SSN has no business in a database the whole team can search.

When you stop taking new vendors, after a hiring push say, set Share form to “No access”.

FAQ

Can vendors fill out a Notion form without a Notion account?

Yes. Share the form with anyone on the web with the link and people who don’t use Notion can submit it. Those responses are anonymous, so ask for the contact name and email inside the form.

Can vendors upload a W-9 or insurance certificate to a Notion form?

Notion’s forms help page doesn’t list a file question. Ask for a link to a secure shared folder, or use a form builder that saves uploads to storage you control.

Should I collect bank details in a Notion vendor onboarding form?

I wouldn’t. Anyone with access to the database can read the answer. Collect banking details through your payment or accounting tool, and confirm any change through a second channel.

Can a Notion vendor form show different questions to contractors and companies?

Native Notion forms support conditional logic only on Business and Enterprise plans. On other plans every vendor sees every question unless you use a separate form builder.

Sources

• Forms, Notion Help Center
• About Form W-9, IRS
• Instructions for the Requester of Form W-9, IRS
• Business Email Compromise PSA, FBI IC3
• Onboarding new vendors: what to collect, Rowan University Procurement