can I see what we answered last year with this customer on the same questionnaire

Previous answer appears next to the new field

Yes, you can. Every answer you have ever confirmed remains stored in the chain file, linked to the question and to the customer for which you completed it. When you receive a new questionnaire from the same customer, the system places last year's answer next to the current field, so you can see at a glance whether anything has changed since the previous round.

This is especially useful for questions that rarely change, such as the establishment address of the company or the registration number. For questions that may change annually — a new ISO 27001 certificate, an updated continuity plan, a different number of employees — that comparison is precisely a control moment: you immediately see whether the old answer is still correct or whether the evidence document needs to be replaced. You confirm again yourself with yes or no; the system does not determine anything automatically.

Where this stems from: the chain file, not the customer

This works because the file is maintained centrally and not separately per customer portal. The underlying data — such as the business data from the Trade Register Act 2007, or the status of an ISO 9001 certification — are recorded once and reused with every questionnaire. What the customer received last year via his own portal is therefore not with that customer, but in your file. This allows you to find the answer from a year ago, even if the customer uses a different format or phrases the question differently than the following year.