Service Provider Diligence for Requestors

Overview

Service Provider Diligence in DiligenceVault gives requestors a centralized way to track, manage, and engage with service providers across their investment entities. Service providers such as administrators, custodians, prime brokers, and auditors play a critical role in fund operations. This feature brings all service provider data and workflows into DiligenceVault, eliminating the need for manual tracking and improving transparency across your relationships.

Key Benefits

• Centralized visibility into service providers across all your entities
• Reduced reliance on spreadsheets or external tracking systems
• Ability to send due diligence projects directly to service providers
• Improved transparency, auditability, and data quality

What Is a Service Provider in DiligenceVault?

A service provider is an external firm that supports a fund or entity in one or more operational roles. A single service provider may perform multiple roles, for example, acting as both an administrator and a custodian. Service providers are always linked to specific entities, ensuring that details are maintained in the correct operational context.

Who can create service providers in Diligencevault?

Service providers can be created by Responders and Premium Requestors.

Viewing and Managing Service Providers

You can access service provider information from two places in DiligenceVault:

Manage → Service Providers This is a centralized grid showing all service providers across your entities. From here you can view active and inactive service providers, send bulk requests for service provider details, and track requests sent to responders.

Entity → Associated Entities → Service Providers This view shows service providers tied to a specific entity. From here, you can review service provider details at the entity level, request or validate information for a single entity, and access the audit trail for that entity's service providers.

Adding Service Providers

You can add a service provider in Three ways:

1. Navigate to New → Service Provider from the navigation bar
   
   
    
2. Navigate to Manage → Service Providers → + New Service Provider
   
   
    
3. Navigate to Manage Firms/Product → Associated Entities → + New Service Provider
   
   

Once the form is open, fill in the following details:

• Service Provider Name : The name of the service provider (e.g., DiligenceVault)
• Alias : An internal name your team uses to refer to the provider (e.g., DV)
• Service Provider Domain : The provider's website
• Service Provider Type : Select one or more types from the list
• Internal Key : Your internal identifier to match the provider with your records
• Owners : Internal users who will be assigned to this provider

On the next tab, assign the service provider to one or more entities for each provider type, then click Create Service Provider. The newly created provider will appear in Manage → Service Providers.

Updating Service Providers

To update a service provider, navigate to Manage → Service Providers and open the specific provider. From there, click the Edit button on the Profile Summary, or click More Actions (⋯) and select Edit Service Provider.

To update associated entities, select Edit Associated Entities

Then select the entities you would like to update and click on update details : 

Adding Service Provider Contacts

To add a contact for a service provider, navigate to New → Contact → Service Provider. Fill in the required fields: Name, Email, and Service Provider, then click Create Contact.

A new SP contact can also be added via Manage →  Contacts →  + New Contact →  Service Provider

Contacts can be added by Responders and Premium Requestors.

Requesting Service Provider Details from Responders

As a requestor, you can ask responders to add service providers for an entity, or to validate and update details for service providers already associated with an entity. Requests can be sent in bulk or for individual entities.

Bulk Request Use this when requesting service provider details for multiple entities at once:

1. Navigate to Manage → Service Providers
2. Click Request Service Provider Details
3. Select the relevant entities and submit

For entities that already have service providers, the request is treated as a validation or update request. For entities without service providers, it is treated as a new service provider request.

Single Entity Request To request details for one specific entity:

1. Navigate to Entity → Associated Entities → Service Providers
2. Click Request Service Provider Details
3. Submit the request

If a service provider is already associated with the entity, the request will appear as a Validate Service Provider Details request.

Tracking Your Requests 

All outgoing requests can be tracked from the Requests Sent tab within the Service Provider grid. Requests remain visible until the responder completes the action. Once details are added or updated, the request is automatically removed from the list.

Sending Project Requests to Service Providers

Beyond requesting service provider details, you can send full due diligence project requests directly to service providers.

To create a new request, navigate to New → Request from the navigation bar. In the request creation flow, a Service Provider tab is available alongside the standard entity tabs. Service providers are grouped by their associated entity, so you can select the specific Service Provider, Type, and Entity combination you want to engage.

Once submitted, the request is routed to the service provider for completion, based on the authorization settings configured by the associated responder firm.

Understanding Authorization for Service Provider Projects

Responder firms can configure how authorization works for service provider projects. As a requestor, it is important to understand how this affects the requests you send.

There are three possible authorization settings a responder firm may have in place:

No Authorization Required (Default) : The project is sent directly to the service provider and is automatically marked as authorized. No action is needed from the responder before the project starts.

Authorization Required for Every New Service Provider : The responder must authorize each new service provider before a request can be sent to them. This check is applied at the requestor level, meaning that if you send a request to a service provider that has not yet been authorized by the responder, it will be held pending their approval.

Authorization Required for Each Service Provider Confirmation : Every individual service provider project request must be separately authorized by the responder before it proceeds.

Assigning Authorizers : Admin or Business admin users can add Authorizers in Firm Settings → Preferences →  Firm Preferences →  Service Provider Authorization →  Assign Authorizers

Added users will authorize all service provider requests. You can add; specific authorizers to a service provider or specific entity. For auto-authorized projects, they'll be cc'd.

Tracking Pending Authorizations You can monitor the authorization status of your service provider requests by navigating to New → Request → Pending Manager Authorizations. This dashboard shows all requests that are pending authorization or have been declined. From here, you can send a reminder to the responder or withdraw the request if needed.

How Service Provider Projects Work

Once a service provider project is authorized and underway, here is how the workflow operates from your perspective as a requestor.

After the service provider submits the project, you can review the submission, rate it, raise follow-ups, and perform all the standard functions available to you in the existing project flow. The service provider handles the response side, including submitting answers, raising follow-ups, and attaching documents. The associated responder firm has view-only access to the project, though they can still export it.

Tracking Data from Service Provider Projects

Data collected through service provider projects is associated with the responder's entity for which the project was created, not with the service provider who responded. This ensures that all data is organized within the correct entity context.

To help you distinguish this data from standard responder project data, a "Service Provider" tag is automatically applied to all data received through service provider projects.

Service Provider Information Visibility

• If a responder creates a service provider for an entity, it is visible to all investors tracking that data.
• If a responder edits service provider details, the changes are visible to all investors.
• If a requestor creates a service provider for an entity, it is visible to all investors tracking that data.
• If a requestor  edits service provider details, the changes are visible only to that requestor’s firm and not to the responder or other requestors.

Deactivating Service Providers

When a service provider is no longer applicable, you can mark them as inactive to keep your data current without losing historical records.

To deactivate a service provider, navigate to Entity → Associated Entities → Service Providers and select the option to mark as inactive. You will be prompted to provide a Relationship End Date and a Reason for Inactivating. Historical data is preserved while your active views remain clean and relevant.

• If a responder marks a service provider association inactive, it is deactivated for all requestors.
• If a responder bulk inactivates a service provider, all its entity associations are inactivated.
• If a requestor marks a service provider association inactive, it is deactivated only for that requestor.
• If an entity is inactivated, all associated service providers are also inactivated.
• Inactivating one service provider association does not inactivate the same service provider’s other associations.

Audit Trail and Change History

DiligenceVault maintains a full audit trail for service provider activity to support governance and transparency. To view it, navigate to Entity → Associated Entities → Service Providers and click the Audit Trail icon in the Actions column. The audit trail shows all changes made for the selected entity and service role over time.

Recommendations, Workflows and Documents

You can add recommendations to your service providers by going to Manage →  Service Provider →  Recommendations Tab 

Similarly, you can create a workflow process and start directly at the service provider level.

You can also associate the received documents directly with the service providers in the documents tab.

Public API and Bulk Upload

Service providers can also be created and updated in bulk using the Public API or the Bulk Upload functionality, significantly reducing the time and effort required compared to manual updates within the platform.

Note: Currently, only the pre-defined bulk upload option is supported for the Service Provider module.

Summary

Service Provider Diligence gives requestors a complete, centralized toolkit for managing service provider relationships. From tracking and validating provider details to sending full due diligence projects directly to service providers, DiligenceVault streamlines the entire process. With authorization tracking, a clear project workflow, and automatic data tagging, your firm can reduce manual effort, improve data quality, and maintain strong operational oversight across all your entities.