Read the certificate, not the badge.

How do you verify a flooring certificate?

Use six checks: issuer, holder, site, scope, status and order match. Open the full document, including its annexes, and verify the record through the issuer’s own route. Then record what the document supports for your product. A recognised logo on a presentation does not complete any of those order-specific checks.

Buyer document register. Proposed fields, not a single certification scheme’s requirements.

Check	Record	Approval question
Issuer	Issuing body and independent contact route	Can the record be verified there?
Holder	Exact named legal entity	What is its relationship to our supplier?
Site	Address and any covered-site annex	Is our producing plant included?
Scope	Product or activity wording and exclusions	Does the proposed construction belong?
Status	Validity dates and issuer check date	What status did the issuer show?
Order match	SKU, specification revision and intended claim	What are we entitled to say about this floor?

The SGS certified client directory accepts certificate numbers or a company-and-location search. That illustrates a useful issuer-led verification route. Other issuers have their own records and procedures. Use the correct issuer rather than assuming every document belongs in one universal database.

Which document supports which claim?

Identify the type of evidence before comparing suppliers. A management-system certificate addresses the system within its scope. Product certification addresses its defined product claim. A laboratory report records the tested sample and method. A site audit provides findings within its assessment scope. Putting these in one “certified” column hides decisions the buyer still needs to make.

ISO’s certification guidance explains that certification is performed by external bodies; ISO itself does not issue certificates. When a supplier presents an ISO-standard management-system document, identify the issuing body and its scope. Do not translate that document into approval of every performance claim made for the flooring.

For emissions certification, SCS describes FloorScore as a programme with product evaluation and certification requirements, including a private-label route. That specific check belongs in the FloorScore verification guide. Do not stretch it into a fire classification, origin determination or mechanical-performance result.

How should social audits be recorded?

Record the audit method, site, date and findings, with any corrective-action follow-up. Do not replace the report with a badge or describe it as a product certificate. The evidence concerns the audited conditions and scope. The buyer still needs to decide how those findings meet its own approval process for that site.

Sedex’s SMETA description explains its site-assessment approach and corrective-action process. Request the report and the relevant follow-up, rather than treating a general statement of membership as equivalent to the audit. A site-level assessment also does not establish the provenance of every upstream material in an order.

Keep sensitive audit material in the buyer’s controlled file. Public profile wording can state the evidence status without distributing a report that has not been authorised for publication. “Not verified” should describe a gap in the reviewed evidence; it should not be rewritten as an allegation that the factory failed an audit.

What does a worked example of scope matching show?

Consider an illustrative purchase of construction B from Site 2. The supplier provides a genuine certificate naming construction A at Site 1. Authenticity has answered only the first question. Before using its claim for the order, obtain an applicable product-and-site record or issuer confirmation. These invented labels describe a method, not a named supplier’s documents.

Illustrative document review; A, B, Site 1 and Site 2 are hypothetical labels.

Field	Offered order	Document received	Review decision
Construction	B	A	Match not established
Producing site	Site 2	Site 1	Site coverage not established
Document authenticity	Issuer record found	Record matches PDF	Authenticity check recorded
Packaging claim	Requested for B	Permission not established	Do not approve the claim yet

Save the issuer response with the specification revision and the document version. If the issuer confirms coverage through an annex, keep that annex rather than recording only “yes” in an email. Another reviewer should be able to reproduce the reasoning without asking the original buyer to remember a conversation.

What belongs in the approval record?

Record the conclusion narrowly enough that it remains true when the file is reopened. State who checked the source, when it was checked, which order revision was assessed and which claim was accepted. Preserve unresolved mismatches as actions with owners. A supplier document library is useful input, but an order approval needs the match recorded.

Start with the company and site roles in the Vietnam factory directory. Match the producer and site, then retain the issuer’s own status record against the proposed construction.

Keep country-of-origin evidence separate through the manufacturing-origin workflow. A certificate can be authentic and relevant to its product claim while remaining silent about the origin of the particular shipment. That boundary should appear in the buyer’s evidence register.

Our view: what would we approve before production?

We would withhold carton-claim approval until the product match and permission to use the wording are both recorded. Give the factory the approved artwork revision with that decision. If a proposed substitution changes a supporting fact, reopen the affected check rather than asking the printer to inherit the earlier approval.

Our factory-selection support can coordinate document requests and factory-side follow-up. The buyer’s technical or compliance owner should decide which evidence meets the market and contract requirements. A purchasing office can make the file easier to assess without presenting itself as the certifier or laboratory.

Common mistakes: which shortcuts create confusion?

Review the language used in the supplier comparison as carefully as the uploaded documents. A green tick labelled “certificates” can conceal a missing annex or a different producing site. Use separate fields and short findings. The table below proposes clearer working records without inventing a universal expiry rule for every type of evidence.

Practical corrections for a buyer’s document register.

Mistake	Better record
“ISO certified product” based on a system certificate	Name the system standard, issuer and activity scope
“Current” because the PDF was downloaded today	Record printed dates and dated issuer status separately
“All products covered” from one certificate	Record the product family, constructions and exclusions
“Social audit approved” without report review	Record audit scope, findings and follow-up status

Before repeating an order, check which underlying facts changed. A new pad, manufacturing site or claim on the carton can require a fresh scope decision. Keep the previous record as history and attach the new conclusion to the revised product, so the team can see why it changed.

Questions buyers ask

Should we delete an expired certificate from the working file?

Keep it as history, labelled with its dates. Request the replacement and verify its current status separately. Deleting the old file can hide which version supported an earlier order.

What if the issuer’s database gives no result?

Check the number and legal-name spelling, then contact the issuer through an independently located official route. Keep its response in the file. An empty search result is unresolved evidence; it does not by itself prove that the certificate is false.

Should a translated certificate replace the original?

We would retain both under the same document reference, including the original annexes. If a translated product or site description changes the apparent meaning, seek clarification from the issuer before approving the claim. This is a buyer record control, not a universal translation rule.

Who should approve the wording on our cartons?

Have your compliance owner assess the exact wording and logo against the scheme’s use conditions and your product record. Keep approval with the carton revision so a design change does not reuse outdated permission.

Sources & further reading

• ISO: certification and independent certification bodies, checked November 2026
• SGS: certified client directory and verification fields, checked November 2026
• SCS: FloorScore programme and private-label certification, checked November 2026
• Sedex: SMETA audit scope and corrective actions, checked November 2026