How to get a PPON, and why a bid gets rejected without one

A PPON is the identifier the government’s central digital platform gives your organisation when you register on it. A share code is the thing you generate afterwards that lets a buyer pull your company details straight from that platform instead of asking you to type them into their portal again.

You will be asked for both when bidding for above-threshold work. Buyers are required to get confirmation that you have registered and submitted your core information before you take part in a procurement, so a bid that arrives without them can be rejected without ever being read.

What to have in front of you

• Your Companies House number, or the equivalent. A Charity Commission number will do.
• Your registered address.
• An organisation email address that more than one person can get into. Not a personal one: the day you need it will be the day that person is on holiday.
• Recent accounts, for the financial standing section.
• Names, dates of birth and addresses of connected persons: directors and people with significant control.

The steps

1. Create a GOV.UK One Login. Email, password, and two-factor. If your organisation already uses One Login for something else, this is the same account.
2. Register on the central digital platform. Agree to the privacy policy, give your name.
3. Register the organisation. Choose Supplier when it asks whether you are a buyer or a supplier. Give the company number, name, email and registered address.
4. Fill in your supplier information. Six sections: basic information, connected persons, qualifications, trade assurances, exclusions and financial information. This is the long part, and it is the part you never have to do again.
5. Declare and generate a share code. Confirm the information is accurate, then generate the code, or download the file if a buyer wants it by email instead.

Start at the Find a Tender service.

Why it is worth doing before you need it

The information is reusable. Once it is in, it is in for every procurement, and you update it rather than re-enter it. Doing it against a deadline is how the financial section ends up wrong.

What it does not replace

Registering does not put you on any list of approved suppliers and does not get you invited to anything. Buyers still run their competitions on their own systems: you find the notice, then you go and register on whichever portal that buyer uses. Every notice page here shows which system that is, taken from the notice itself.

You will see it in the records

Where an organisation has one, its PPON travels with every notice it appears on, which is how two notices from the same buyer end up on the same page here even when the name is spelled differently on each. It is still new, so most of the older records on this site predate it. A supplier page without one is not a supplier who has failed to register, it is usually a contract awarded before any of this existed.