my customer is now using a different form than last year, what should I do

New format, same underlying data

A different format from your customer changes nothing about the data itself — it only changes how the questions are organized and worded. The legal name, the Chamber of Commerce number, the turnover, the number of employees: those facts are fixed in your chain file, regardless of which portal or which questionnaire your customer uses this year. What last year was under "general information" could this year be split into separate fields for the statutory name and the registration number — but the content of the answer remains the same.

Where it does become an issue: a new format sometimes asks for things worded slightly differently, or asks for a piece of evidence that the previous list did not request. Think of a customer who last year only asked "do you have ISO 9001?" and this year wants to see the certificate number and the validity date. Our system recognizes the new question based on its meaning, not based on the exact wording from last year, and proposes the appropriate answer from the file. If the requested piece of evidence is missing — for example because the previous question did not require a certificate number — then the system leaves that field empty instead of guessing.

Recognition works on meaning, not on template

This does not follow from a legal regulation but from how the system is built: it matches questions on content (for example: is this about CSRD reporting under Directive (EU) 2022/2464, about the ten measures of Article 21 NIS2, or about an ISO 27001 Annex A measure), not on the exact wording or order of a specific portal. A new format from the same customer, or a completely different portal with a similar question, is therefore recognized as the same underlying question. If a new piece of evidence remains that is still not in the file — for example something about the countries where the company has establishments — then you add that once, and it is ready for the next list, from this or another customer.