can I also upload a PDF or Excel file from my customer

Yes, PDF and Excel are precisely the standard input

Yes, that works. Most questionnaires that customers send are a PDF or an Excel export from their own portal, and the system is built for that: it recognizes the question structure, links each question to the supply chain file and provides a suggested answer. This applies equally to a single checklist as to an extensive questionnaire with tabs per topic — for example one tab for identity, one tab for size and one tab for certification.

It does not matter whether the questions literally match the source. A question such as "describe your legal entity" is recognized as a variant of the legal name of the company, and "number of FTE" as a variant of the number of employees. For a scanned PDF without a recognizable text layer, recognition may fail; the field then remains empty instead of a guess being filled in. You can see for each question whether a suggestion has been found or not, and you confirm yourself with yes or no before anything goes to the customer portal.

What the system does and does not do with the file

The file is used only to recognize the question structure and link it to existing answers from the supply chain file — not to automatically submit anything. For a question about information security, for example, the system links to the control measures you have already documented according to ISO/IEC 27001 Annex A, or to the ten measures of Article 21(2) of the NIS2 Directive (Directive (EU) 2022/2555). For a sustainability questionnaire, it can link to data that has been entered according to the basic module of the EFRAG VSME standard. Nothing is assessed or certified; the system merely proposes a link between the question asked and an already documented answer, and you confirm whether that link is correct.