Supplier certificate tracking software for food plants
Certly is supplier certificate tracking software built for QA managers at mid-market food plants, and this is the screen it is built around. One dashboard shows every supplier you have entered and the status of each certificate against it: current, expiring soon, expired, or missing entirely.
The certificate you cannot find is the one you get asked for
Most plants track supplier certificates in three places at once: a spreadsheet with expiry dates someone updates when they remember, a shared folder of PDFs named by whoever saved them, and an inbox where the most recent allergen declaration is still an attachment nobody has filed.
That arrangement holds up right until an auditor picks a supplier at random. Then the question is not whether you have a certificate, it is whether the one on file is the current one, and answering it means opening three sources and reconciling them by hand while somebody waits.
The harder gap is the one a spreadsheet cannot show you. An out-of-date CoA at least has a row. A certificate type you were supposed to collect and never did has no row at all, so it is invisible until an auditor asks for it by name. Absence does not draw attention to itself.
Certly's dashboard exists to close that gap. Each supplier record carries the certificate types you require from that supplier, allergen declaration, CoA, audit certificate, and the dashboard shows the state of each of those slots on a single screen: current, expiring soon, expired or missing, worked out from the expiry dates you have recorded and recomputed when the screen is loaded.
How the dashboard works
- Open one screen for the plant
The dashboard is a single-screen view of certificate status per supplier. You are not clicking into each supplier record to find out where you stand, the whole picture loads at once.
- Read the four statuses
Every certificate slot is shown as current, expiring soon, expired or missing. Those four states are the whole vocabulary, so there is nothing to interpret and no half-filled cell to argue about.
- Know when the status was last worked out
Status is derived from the expiry date recorded against the document and recomputed when a dashboard view runs, not guaranteed to be swept continuously in the background. A scheduled daily sweep that keeps statuses fresh while nobody is in the app is part of what Certly is being built to do and is not yet proven on a deployed site, so read a status as correct as of the last time the screen was opened.
- Work the exceptions, not the list
Expired and missing are the rows that cost you a non-conformance, and expiring soon is the row you can still fix quietly. Current suppliers need nothing from you today, which is the point of separating them.
- Chase from the row you are reading
Each supplier row on the dashboard carries a chase now action that sends an immediate one-off chase email to that supplier's contact, using the same chase wording the automated sequence uses and logged in the supplier's chase history as a manual send. You do not leave the screen to ask for the document.
- Export the same screen for the auditor
The dashboard exports as a PDF for auditor review. The four status badges in the export use the same colours, labels and iconography as the badges on screen, so the document handed across the table says exactly what you were looking at.
- See the scope stated on the screen
A compact two-sentence summary sits near the status badges: Certly tracks and reminds on certificate expiry, it does not verify certificate authenticity or guarantee regulatory compliance. A read more control expands the full wording, and the same two sentences appear near the top of the PDF export.
- Explore a populated demo first
The demo data is seeded so that all four statuses appear across suppliers, including a missing-certificate case, and the suppliers screen has an empty state telling you to add your first supplier. You can see how the dashboard behaves before you put a single real certificate into it.
What each status means on the dashboard
| Status | What it tells you | The decision in front of you |
|---|---|---|
| Current | A certificate of that type is on file and its recorded expiry date had not passed at the last recompute | Nothing today, this supplier is not your problem this week |
| Expiring soon | The recorded expiry date is close enough to act on now | Start the chase while there is still time to get a replacement without urgency |
| Expired | The expiry date recorded against the document on file has passed | Treat it as an open item, and open the dashboard before an audit so every status is freshly computed |
| Missing | A required certificate type has no document against this supplier at all | Decide whether it was never collected or never requested, then close the gap |
What a status does not promise
Two limits are worth saying out loud before you lean on this screen in front of an auditor.
- Freshness. A status is a calculation over the expiry dates you have recorded, refreshed when a dashboard view runs it. The background sweep that would keep statuses current on a site nobody has opened for a week is still being built and proven, so on a plant left unopened a status can be older than the date beside it. Opening the dashboard recomputes it.
- Authenticity. A current status means a document of that type is on file with an expiry date ahead of it. It does not mean the document is genuine, or that the issuing body still stands behind it. Certly tracks and reminds on certificate expiry, it does not verify certificate authenticity or guarantee regulatory compliance.
Supplier approval judgement stays with your QA team. The dashboard is here so that judgement is not made on a stale spreadsheet, and the limits above are why it is a tracking and reminder system rather than a compliance assurance tool.
What this changes in the QA week
One source instead of three
Supplier status lives on one screen rather than split across a spreadsheet, a folder and an inbox, so nobody has to reconcile versions before answering a question about a supplier.
Missing is a visible status, not an oversight
A certificate type you have never received shows as missing on the dashboard with the same weight as an expired one. The gap is on the screen rather than waiting to be discovered by someone else.
The ask happens where you spot the problem
Chase now sits on the row itself, so noticing an expired audit certificate and asking for the replacement are the same action, and the send is written to that supplier's chase log as a manual chase.
The auditor's PDF matches the screen
The export renders the same four status badges, with the same labels and colours, and carries the same two-sentence statement of what Certly does and does not do. There is no second version of the truth to explain.
Built for one plant, not a group
Certly is single-site in scope, one plant per account, and supplier and certificate reads are scoped to that plant. What loads on the dashboard is your site's position, with no group-level rollup to filter out first.
Where Certly is today
Certly is in development and open for waitlist signups, so what is described on this page is what the dashboard is being built to do, not a claim about how other plants are using it.
It is deliberately narrow. This is not a full quality management platform with HACCP plans, questionnaires and corrective action workflows attached. It is supplier certificate tracking software for a single plant, aimed at the one failure mode that turns a routine audit into a non-conformance: a certificate that quietly went out of date, or one that was never collected.
The screen is the summary. The machinery behind it has its own pages: expiry tracking with configurable alert thresholds at 90, 60 and 30 days, the automated chase sequences that email the supplier contact, the single-use upload link a supplier uses without creating an account, and how a certificate is stored against a supplier and a certificate type.
If you are evaluating tools and your problem is genuinely broader than certificates, a wider platform will serve you better. If your problem is that you cannot say with confidence, right now, which of your suppliers has an expired allergen declaration on file, that is the question this screen is built to answer.
Join the waitlist and we will tell you when the plant setup opens.
Questions
How do you track supplier certificate expiry dates in Certly?
You record the expiry date against each certificate, and the dashboard shows each certificate held against a supplier as current, expiring soon, expired or missing. You read the plant's position on a single screen rather than checking dates in a spreadsheet supplier by supplier.
How fresh is a status on the dashboard?
Status is recomputed when a dashboard view runs, so it is accurate as of the last time the screen was opened. A scheduled background sweep that refreshes statuses while nobody is in the app is part of what Certly is being built to do and is not yet proven on a deployed site, so open the dashboard before you rely on it or export it.
What does the missing status mean?
Missing means a required certificate type has no document against that supplier at all. Required types are set on the supplier record, so a certificate you never collected is as visible as one that has expired.
Can I ask a supplier for a certificate from the dashboard?
Yes. Each supplier row carries a chase now action that sends an immediate one-off chase email to that supplier's contact, using the same wording as the automated sequence and recorded in the supplier's chase history as a manual send.
Can I give an auditor a copy of the dashboard?
The dashboard exports as a PDF for auditor review. The status badges in the export use the same labels, colours and iconography as the screen, and the same two-sentence statement of scope appears near the top of the document.
Does Certly check that a certificate is genuine?
No. Certly tracks certificate expiry and reminds you, and a two-sentence summary on the dashboard and in the PDF export states that it does not verify certificate authenticity or guarantee regulatory compliance. Verification and supplier approval decisions remain with your QA team.
Does the dashboard cover more than one site?
No. Certly is single-site in scope, one plant per account, and the supplier and certificate reads behind the dashboard are scoped to the authenticated user's plant, so the screen shows your plant's suppliers and their certificates rather than a group rollup.
Is Certly available now, and how do people sign in?
Certly is in development and taking waitlist signups, so everything described here is what the product is built to do. Sign-in is with an email address and a password, and we will contact waitlist members when plant setup opens.