What is the Central Digital Platform?

Central Digital Platform is an online portal which will make it easier for suppliers to find and bid for contracts, and for buyers to meet their transparency commitments under the Procurement Act 2023.

The Central Digital Platform has been designed to:

• Feature a simple registration and identification for both suppliers and buyers.
• Store suppliers’ core business details that can be used for multiple bids.
• Enable easy management and updating of core information quickly, and shared easily between suppliers, eSenders and buyers.
• Make public procurement opportunities visible making it easier to search at no cost and set up alerts for tenders of interest for suppliers.
• Allow for procurement noticing throughout the procurement lifecycle.
• Capture procurement data and eventually allow creation of dashboards to analyse that data.

Additional video guidance is available detailing these steps.

You should use this guide when registering your organisation on the service for the first time. If you need help with completing supplier information, please watch the walkthrough video or read the supporting user guide and follow the instructions provided.

Step 1: Registration

Every supplier should agree who its first person is to set up the organisation, and do the initial set up, and add and approve other users. The Administrator will also enter and amend all of the details about the organisation.

To get started, visit our user registration pageant complete the following information to create an account.

If you already have a GOV.UK One Login account, select ‘Sign in’ or, if you do not have an account, follow the steps below to register.

Register for GOV.UK One Login

To  register for a GOV.UK One Login account, select ‘Create your Gov.UK One Login’.

Enter your individual work email address on the first page, then view and agree to the terms of use, and privacy policy.

A code will be sent to your email address. Once you receive the 6 digit security code, enter when prompted on the next screen. Your email might take a few minutes to arrive and you may need to check your spam folder.

You will then be asked to choose a password.

Next, you will now have to choose how to receive security codes. You can choose from receiving a text message or by an authentication app.

If you selected the text message option, an SMS text message will be sent from GOVUK to your registered mobile phone number with a 6-digit verification code. The code may take a few minutes to arrive and will expire after 15 minutes.

You should enter this code on the next page and continue.

You will have now created a GOV.UK One Login.

Complete Central Digital Platform Registration

Once you have created your GOV.UK One Login, you will then proceed to finalise your registration for the Central Digital Platform.

You should now read and agree to the Central Digital Platform service privacy policy.

You will then be asked to enter your first and last name.

Once you select continue, a page displaying your account details and the option to register an organisation will load.

Register an Organisation

You will need to have to hand the organisation’s Companies House number or an equivalent, like a Charity Commission number, and the registered address.

You will first need to select ‘Register an organisation’ from the ‘My account’ page. You will then be asked whether you wish to register as a Buyer or Supplier - select Supplier.

You will now be asked if your organisation has a Companies House number. If you do, you will be prompted to enter one.

If you do not have a Companies House number, select ‘No’ and you will be prompted with the alternative options. If none apply, you will be generated a unique identifier.

You will now check or enter your organisation’s registered name. If you previously entered a Companies House number, this will be automatically populated from Companies House.

Next, check or enter your organisation’s registered address. As before, this will be automatically populated if you entered a Companies House number.

The next screen will allow you to check your answers, and make any necessary changes, before proceeding to select ‘save’ and completing the registration of your organisation.

Selecting ‘Save’ will load the ‘My account’ page which will now show your registered organisation.

To see the details of the organisation and complete supplier information, select ‘View’.

Further organisations can be added. For example, you might be a shareholding director in several businesses, and wish to register all of those businesses then set up further administrators and users for each.

Step 2: Enter your details

Now you will be required to enter the organisation’s supplier information. Having all the required information to hand will speed up the process. The administrator will be asked to input or upload:

• Basic Information,
• Connected Persons,
• Qualifications,
• Trade Assurances,
• Exclusions, and
• Financial Information.

Once you have the required information to hand, navigate to the organisation page by selecting ‘view’ next to your chosen organisation.

This will load a page displaying the details of your organisation. To complete your supplier information, select ‘Complete Supplier Information’.

You should then work through each section and enter the information required. There are very simple dropdowns for each section and hint text to show what is needed.

FTS Supplier Example

If you need a more detailed walkthrough of how to enter supplier information, please watch the walkthrough video ‘A guide for suppliers: Detailed walkthrough How an administrator completes and updates supplier info’ or read the associated user guide and follow the instructions provided.

A guide for suppliers: Detailed walkthrough How an administrator completes and updates supplier info

Step 3: Declare and Share

Once supplier information has been completed, it is ready for checking and declaring that it is accurate. To share the information as part of the bid, there are two methods. It could be through a share code, a number that is entered in the contracting authority’s tendering portal, or, by downloading the information and sharing by email or uploading as an attachment.

Once the Supplier Information has been completed, select ‘Share my information’ to begin the information sharing process.

Next, a page will load where you can find out more about how sharing supplier information works or progress to sharing information by selecting ‘Create a share code’.

Additionally from this page you will be able to see any previously generated share codes and the date they were created on. If your supplier information changes, you can update it and create a new share code and file to share the new information.

To progress, you must read the declaration and select the box to confirm that you understand and agree to the declaration.

Next, you will be prompted to enter your name.

Then, enter your job title.

You’ll then be asked to enter your work email address.

Next, you will be prompted to enter the postal address of your organisation.

You will then be prompted to check your answers and make changes as necessary. You should then select ‘Confirm and get share code’.

A page will then will load which displays your share code. You can also download your supplier information file for onward sharing.

You are now bid ready.