Vendor Compliance Tracker for SMBs: Automated Document & Reminder Management

This post describes a significant niche opportunity for a SaaS product: a vendor compliance tracker tailored for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The core problem highlighted is that operations managers manually track 20-50 vendors using spreadsheets, leading to missed expiry dates, failed audits, and lost contracts. Existing solutions are either too rudimentary (spreadsheets) or prohibitively expensive enterprise tools ($5k+).

The proposed SaaS product would fill this gap by offering automated document tracking, AI-powered expiry date extraction, and intelligent reminder systems. A highly detailed comment from a user with direct experience in vendor compliance further validates the need and provides a comprehensive feature roadmap, including:

• Vendor Self-Serve Portal: Allow vendors to upload, sign, and manage their own documents via magic links, with version history and approval workflows.
• Multi-Document Tracking: Support for various compliance documents (COI, W-9, DPA, SOC2 reports, BAAs).
• AI-Assisted Data Extraction: AI to pre-fill expiry dates with human confirmation for accuracy (especially for complex COIs).
• Smart Reminders & Escalations: Customizable 90/60/30/7-day reminders to both vendors and internal owners, pausing when documents are received, auto-escalation to managers, and ICS calendar hold integration.
• Integrations: Gmail auto-forward parsing, Google Drive/SharePoint for storage, Slack/Teams alerts.
• Reporting & Auditing: Per-vendor document matrix, monthly executive digests, auditor exports, and an immutable activity log.

This opportunity targets a clear pain point for SMBs that cannot afford enterprise solutions but desperately need to streamline compliance to avoid legal, financial, and operational risks. The explicit 'I'm in' from a validation comment, along with a suggested lean MVP (COI/DPA tracker, vendor portal, smart reminders, auditor exports), reduces market risk and provides a clear starting point.

Product Form: A web-based application with a clean, intuitive dashboard for internal users and a simplified, secure portal for vendors. Mobile accessibility for quick checks and approvals would also be beneficial.

Expected Revenue: The suggested pricing of $49/month for 25 vendors is a viable entry point. With the detailed feature set, a per-active-vendor pricing model or tiered pricing could be implemented, potentially with a small onboarding fee. If the product successfully captures a niche in industries with heavy vendor reliance (e.g., property management, healthcare, construction, facilities management), a few thousand customers could easily generate a strong recurring revenue stream. For example, 1,000 customers at $49/month would yield $49,000 MRR, scaling significantly as the customer base grows and ARPU increases with premium features or higher vendor counts.