Verinor · Material certificates · Metal distributors and manufacturers
More time for quality work. Verinor handles the material certificates and the customer documentation.
Verinor is a service from Cloudfox for material certificates and the documentation to your customers. The AI agent reads the material certificates and the other certificates from the suppliers, follows up on what is missing, checks every value against the standard and the customer's requirements, and sends the documentation with the delivery, by email or in the customer's portal. Whatever is missing or deviates is stopped before it reaches the customer, and you decide. We implement it against your ERP and are responsible for it when it runs. Fixed price.
3.1 · S355J2+N · heat 24-81733
- Certificate type, grade and heat match the order
- Chemistry and mechanical properties within EN 10025-2
- Sulphur 0.021 %: meets the standard, not the customer's maximum of 0.015 %
The heat is blocked from delivery until you have decided. Fictitious data.
The delivery does not wait for the documentationThe certificates and declarations are read when the material arrives, not when the delivery is due. What is missing is requested from the supplier before the delivery is due.
Hours back in quality, purchasing and order handlingThe agent reads, matches, reminds and sends. You do what requires judgement: decide on what deviates.
Deviations are found before the customer finds themEvery certificate is checked against the standard and the customer's requirements: the right certificate type, the right heat, chemistry and mechanical properties within the limits. What deviates is shown to you at once, not when the customer files a claim.
Traceable per heatEvery certificate, decision and delivery is saved per heat, and every manual decision is logged. In the web interface you see which certificate went with which delivery, and who approved the deviation.
Book 30 minutes
ERP systems Business Central · Dynamics FO · Monitor · Jeeves · Garp · Pyramid · SAP · M3 · IFS · Visma · QAD · and more
Documents Material certificates to EN 10204 (2.1 to 3.2) · Heat treatment, NDT, PMI, pressure and leak tests, dimensional inspection · CoC, CPR, REACH, RoHS and the suppliers' ISO 9001 · and more, scanned or digital
Reports Per supplier and per steel grade: right first time, deviations, what is missing, response time
The problem
The material is here. The documentation is not.
The customer requires the documentation with the delivery, and the material certificates weigh the most: usually a 3.1 to EN 10204 and sometimes a 3.2 with a third party's signature. The certificate has to apply to the very heat that is delivered, and its values have to meet both the standard and the requirements the customer has tightened. On top of them come heat treatment certificates, NDT reports and the other certificates the order requires.
As a distributor you receive the documentation from the suppliers and pass it on with every delivery. As a manufacturer you receive it for the material you build in and pass it on to your own customer, together with what you produce yourselves, such as NDT and dimensional inspection, and the traceability per heat.
Someone has to fetch, read, match and file the documentation at every goods receipt, and pull it out, check it and send it with every delivery.
Four things often go wrong.
- The certificate is missing when the delivery is due. It never came from the supplier, and nobody followed up. The delivery waits, or leaves without a certificate.
- A wrong value gets through. A chemistry value is misread, a superseded edition of the standard is used, or a value meets the standard but not the customer's tightened requirement. The customer finds it.
- The heat does not match. The heat number in the certificate differs from the one on the delivery note or in stock, and the traceability is broken.
- The requirements live in someone's head. One person knows which customer has tightened what. When that person is away, someone else has to guess.
It costs in two ways. First in hours: every certificate has to be fetched, read, matched and passed on, and the hours grow with every goods receipt. Then when the customer finds the error: a claim, material that has to be replaced or a finding in the customer's audit.
Today
The documentation is handled by hand, and the errors are found late
Material certificate 3.1arrives by email from the supplier or is downloaded from the supplier's portal, saved in a folder
Matching to the goods receiptdone by hand against delivery note and purchase order
Chemistry and mechanical propertiesread off by hand against the standard, not against the customer's tightened requirements
The customer's tightened requirementsin the contract, in one person's head
Heat treatment certificatemissing, nobody has asked the supplier
NDT reportdug out of the email
Own XRF measurementin a spreadsheet next to the instrument
Delivery to the customercertificates copied together and emailed by hand
With the agent
The agent reads, matches and follows up, and the errors show at once. You decide
Material certificate 3.1read straight from the email, the folder or the supplier's web portal and structured
Matching to the goods receiptmatched to purchase order, item and heat in the ERP, and to the customer order when the purchase was made for it
Chemistry and mechanical propertieschecks every value against the standard and the customer's requirements, flags the sulphur: 0.021 % against the customer's maximum of 0.015 %
The customer's tightened requirementsthe customer's requirements are in the web interface or fetched from the ERP, and the agent checks every delivery against them
Heat treatment certificaterequests it from the supplier and reminds until it arrives
NDT reportfetched and linked to the heat
Own XRF measurementrecorded on the heat, and a value outside the requirements is flagged
Delivery to the customerthe documentation is sent when the delivery leaves, by email or in the customer's portal, and is saved per delivery
Your decision on the deviationwhen something does not meet the requirements
What the certificate type says
EN 10204 distinguishes four types of inspection document. The customer states which one is required, and the type governs what the agent checks.
| Document | Test results | From the delivered product | Signed by |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | – | – | The manufacturer |
| 2.2 | ✓ Yes | – Non-specific inspection | The manufacturer |
| 3.1 | ✓ Yes | ✓ Specific inspection | The manufacturer's inspection representative, independent of manufacturing |
| 3.2 | ✓ Yes | ✓ Specific inspection | The manufacturer's representative and the purchaser's or third party's |
Our solution
Four steps, from goods receipt to the customer's delivery.
- We read the certificates and declarations. The agent we implement for you reads the certificates where they arrive: in email, in a shared folder, in the suppliers' web portals or in the ERP. It reads every value from the certificate, scanned or digital, and matches it to purchase order, item and heat, and to the customer order when the purchase was made for it. Material certificates that arrive on paper you scan on the office printer to the same email or folder. The agent is connected to your ERP, so that every certificate lands on the right heat and follows it through stock and production to the customer order. If the material is cut, the certificate follows every piece and the remainder in stock, as long as the ERP keeps the heat on them. Delivery notes, drawings, quality plans and safety data sheets in the same email are recognised and kept apart from the certificates.
- We follow up what is missing. If a certificate or declaration is missing the agent requests it from the supplier and reminds until it arrives: the certificate for a heat, the heat treatment certificate or the NDT report. The suppliers' ISO 9001 certificates are monitored, so that the request goes out before they expire. No supplier has to sign up or change the way they work.
- We check against the standard and the customer's requirements. Two levels. First that the right documents are there: the right certificate type, the right grade, the right heat, the right edition of the standard and every document the order requires. Then the content: the agent reads every value in the certificate and compares it with the limits for the grade, form and thickness in the edition the certificate cites, and with the customer's requirements for the order. Every deviation points to where in the certificate it is found. The checks are listed below. What matches is linked to the heat. What deviates is blocked from delivery in the web interface and comes to you as a question in Teams, with the certificate and the customer's requirements side by side. The agent never approves a deviation on its own, and it does not judge whether a material is fit for a use the requirements do not cover. That decision is yours. A value it reads with uncertainty it asks you to confirm.
- We send and save. When the customer is due the delivery, the agent pulls out the certificates for the heats in the delivery, adds your own documents, checks the documentation against the customer's requirements and sends it when the delivery leaves – by email or in the customer's portal. Everything is saved per heat and delivery. At the customer's audit the answer is there: which certificate went with which delivery, and who approved the deviation. The digital product passport per item and heat can be built from the same data when the EU requirements for steel arrive.
Where the documents come from
The agent works in the systems you already have. This is what it looks like for a goods receipt and a delivery:
DocumentWhere it isThe agent
Material certificatesThe suppliers' email and web portals, a shared folder, the ERP, paper that is scanned and machine-readable certificatesReads and structures
Purchase order and goods receiptThe ERPMatches item and heat
The customer's requirementsContracts and requirement lists, the orderEntered in the web interface, by us at the start and then by you, or fetched from the ERP
Other certificatesThe suppliers' emailRequests and reminds
Own measurementsYour checks at goods receipt, during processing and before deliveryRecords on the heat, and for your own products on the production order or serial number and the customer order
The documentation to the customerEmail or the customer's portalSends when the delivery leaves
How the agent reads a certificate
At the top, a fictitious 3.1 certificate. Below it, what the agent reads from it, and what each value is compared with.
DRAVIK METALL ABPlate mill · Dravik, Sweden
Inspection certificate 3.1No. 31-26-04417 · 2026-10-12
A · Commercial
A02Type of certificate13.1 · EN 10204:2004
A07Purchaser's order24500-2213
B · Product
B01ProductHot rolled plate
B02Grade / standard3S355J2+N · EN 10025-2:2019
B07Heat no.424-81733
B08Quantity14 pcs · 15.8 t
B09Dimensions512 × 2000 × 6000 mm
C71–C92 · Ladle analysis, %
C0.17
Si0.22
Mn1.38
P0.012
S60.021
Al0.032
N70.006
C10–C43 · Mechanical tests
C11–13ReH · Rm · A8398 MPa · 541 MPa · 26 %
C40–43KV −20 °C, 10 × 10945 · 40 · 41 J, avg 42
Z · Validation
Z01The material complies with the order
Z03Inspector, independent of production10signed
- 1Certificate typeMatches
3.1 according to EN 10204The order requires 3.1 - 2Purchase orderMatches
4500-2213Exists in the ERP, with the same supplier - 3Grade and standardMatches
S355J2+N · EN 10025-2:2019Same as on the order line - 4HeatMatches
24-81733Matches the goods receipt - 5Form and dimensionMatches
Plate 12 × 2,000 × 6,000 mmSame as on the order line - 6Sulphur, ladle analysisDeviates
0.021 %Standard at most 0.025 %, customer's requirement at most 0.015 % - 7Nitrogen, ladle analysisConfirm
0.006 %The stamp covers the figure, so a person confirms the value - 8Tensile testMatches
ReH 398 MPa · Rm 541 MPa · A 26 %At least 355 MPa, 470–630 MPa and 22 % for 12 mm - 9Impact testMatches
KV −20 °C, average 42 JAt least 27 J at −20 °C - 10SignatureMatches
Inspector independent of productionRequired for 3.1
Digital or scanned. PDFs with text are read directly. Scanned certificates and photos are read with OCR, and the page image is used when a value needs to be checked against the original.
The suppliers' own layouts. The field codes in EN 10168 are recognised, as are the manufacturers' own layouts and several heats on one certificate.
What is uncertain goes to a person. Every value is read with a confidence. If it is too low, or a value has ended up in the wrong column, a person confirms the value before it is used.
Following up with the suppliers
If a certificate or declaration has not arrived within the time you have set for the supplier, the agent requests it in your name and reminds until it arrives.
- Due dateRequestEmail in your name: what is missing, purchase order, item and heat. The time is set per supplier, 14 days after goods receipt by default.
- A week laterReminderThe same request, with what is still missing, until it arrives.
- When the delivery approachesThe question to you in TeamsWait, pick another heat or deliver with the certificate to follow. You decide.
How every material certificate is checked
What to check is taken from the order and the customer's requirements: the certificate type, the grade and the values the customer has tightened. Then the certificate is checked against the standard and against the goods receipt. Every row below is a separate check. The limits are the standard's, unless the customer specifies stricter ones.
- 01The right certificate type2.1, 2.2, 3.1 or 3.2 to EN 10204, as the order or the customer's requirements state. A 2.2 is not enough when the customer requires 3.1.
EN 10204 3.1 - 02The right standard and editionThe limits are taken from the edition the certificate cites, even a superseded one.
EN 10025-2:2019 - 03The gradeThe designation on the certificate is the same as on the order, even when it is given as a number, an alias or to another standard.
S355J2+N · 1.0577 - 04The heatThe heat number in the certificate matches the goods receipt in the ERP.
Heat 24-81733 - 05Manufacturer and materialThe manufacturer in the certificate is checked against the supplier on the goods receipt, and the material against the item on the purchase order. A certificate that belongs to another delivery is caught.
Manufacturer · item - 06Product form and dimensionThe product form and dimension on the certificate match the order line, and the form matches the standard the certificate refers to. The form and thickness determine which limits apply for yield strength, tensile strength, elongation and impact energy.
Plate 12 mm - 07Chemical compositionEvery element against the limit for the grade, in the cast analysis and, where there is one, in the product analysis.
C 0.17 · S 0.021 - 08Mechanical propertiesYield strength, tensile strength and elongation against the limits for the thickness range.
ReH 398 MPa - 09The impact energyThe test temperature is the one the grade requires, and the energy meets the requirement.
KV −20 °C 42 J - 10The customer's tightened requirementsThe customer's own requirements, per customer, order, supplier or item: the certificate type, tighter chemistry or higher impact energy. We enter them at the start. Then you change them yourselves in the web interface, or they are fetched from the ERP.
S ≤ 0.015 % - 11Supplementary certificatesHeat treatment, NDT, PMI, pressure and leak tests or dimensional inspection are there when the order requires them, and apply to the same heat and item.
NDT · PMI - 12Your own measurementsYour own checks, or an external lab's, at goods receipt, during processing and before delivery to the customer, such as PMI with XRF, hardness tests or dimensional inspection. Measurements on incoming material are recorded on the heat. Measurements on your own products are recorded on the production order or serial number and on the customer order, and trace back to the material's heats through the ERP. A result outside the requirements goes to review.
PMI · HBW - 13Issuer and signatureThe certificate is issued by the material manufacturer and signed: for 3.1 by the manufacturer's representative independent of manufacturing, for 3.2 also by the purchaser's or the third party's.
Signed
The checks are set up to your customers' requirements in the mapping. When the requirements change you change them yourselves in the web interface, or they are fetched from the ERP.
Why not OCR or the document archive?
The document archive knows where the certificate is. The agent knows whether the material holds up. OCR and generic document AI extract the text, but a material certificate is a claim that has to be checked: against the right edition of the standard, against the grade, form and thickness, against the purchase order and the heat, and against what the customer has tightened. That check, and the follow-up on what is missing, is what the agent does. The archive and your systems stay as they are.
The limits the agent checks against
The agent checks against the limits in the standards, per material, product form, thickness and edition, and we keep them up to date when the standards change.
- 280 material designations and 193 aliases. S355J2+N, 1.0577 and the equivalent designations in other standards are recognised as the same material.
- More than 3,800 limit values. Chemistry for 94 standards and mechanical properties for 101, among them EN 10025, EN 10088, EN 10216, EN 10028, EN 10083, EN 10210-1, EN 573-3, EN 755-2, ASTM A240, A276, A312, A105 and A350, API 5L and NORSOK M-630, and JIS, GB/T, IS and KS.
- If a grade is missing it is added within a few working days.
Quality · Material certificates
CF
The certificate agent10:42
Order 58312 · Hammarby Konstruktion AB
Delivery on Thursday · 14 plates S355J2+N, 12 mm · 3.1 to EN 10204 · 4 documents
- Ready
- 3 of 4, checked against standard and customer requirements ✓
- Deviates
- The certificate for heat 24-81733 states sulphur 0.021 %. That meets EN 10025-2, limit 0.025 %, but not the customer's tightened requirement of at most 0.015 %
- The supplier
- Dravik Metall · right first time 73 % over the last 90 days, sulphur above the customer's requirement 7 times
- The delivery
- Documentation prepared, sent when the delivery leaves
Proposal
Ask Hammarby Konstruktion whether they accept 0.021 % for this delivery, or pick another heat that meets 0.015 %. The heat is blocked from delivery until you have decided.The value meets the standard, so the material can be sold to customers without a tightened sulphur requirement. For this customer the tightened requirement decides, and that decision is yours.
Ask the customerChange heatApprove the deviation
The agent takes the searching, the reminders and the uploading. You spend the time on what requires judgement: the deviation, the supplier that does not deliver its declarations, the customer with new requirements.
No new systems, no new logins. The agent logs in where you log in. Your quality system and your document archive stay as they are: the agent works in them and does not replace them. The connections to the suppliers' and customers' web portals are ours to build and keep running.
Do the maths
What the documentation costs you.
Move the sliders. The figures are calculated on your own numbers, not on an average.
What it costs today
600
hours per year spent fetching, reading, matching and sending certificates and declarations today
270 000 SEK
per year in working time
How we work
From the first conversation to operations.
- Walkthrough, 30 minutes. You tell us how you work with the certificates today, from goods receipt to customer: which customers require 3.1 or 3.2 and have tightened requirements, roughly how many certificates come in and which ERP you use. If it is a fit, we move on to the mapping.
- Mapping. We go through real certificates, orders and the customers' requirements with the person who handles them today, and which systems are to be connected. That becomes the basis for the quotation.
- Quotation. After the mapping you get a quotation with a fixed price for the implementation and operations.
- Implementation. We implement the agent against your ERP within two to four weeks and go through it with you, using your own certificates and orders. Fixed price as quoted. You pay for the implementation only once you are satisfied; if you are not, you pay nothing for it.
- In operation. We run the agent: monitoring, updates, ongoing support and new requirements when your customers change them. You follow everything in the web interface.
What we need from you.
- The person who handles the certificates today, a couple of hours during the mapping.
- Examples of your certificates and the customers' requirements: contracts, requirement lists or tightened requirements per customer.
- An example of the documentation you send to a customer today, for one delivery.
- Which suppliers' and customers' web portals you use, and the logins to them.
- Access to the ERP, first to see how the connection should be made and then with read and write rights, preferably in a test environment.
- One hour with your IT, about access to the mailboxes where the certificates arrive and about your Microsoft environment.
Reports
How your suppliers handle their documentation.
The statistics build themselves from every certificate and declaration that comes in. You see them in the web interface for the last 30 or 90 days or all time, and can export them.
The supplier report
412Certificates and declarations in
88 %Right first time
9Missing right now
3 daysMedian response time
Norrvik Stål AB146 certificates94 %Deviations9Missing1Response time2 days
Kaltenau Stahlwerk98 certificates92 %Deviations8Missing0Response time3 days
Bergsplåt AB87 certificates84 %Deviations14Missing3, oldest 6 daysResponse time4 days
Dravik Metall AB52 certificates73 %Deviations14Missing5, oldest 12 daysResponse time9 days, 3 reminders
Östlandets Rör AB29 certificates90 %Deviations3Missing0Response time2 days
Dravik Metall: one certificate in four deviates, and replies are slow. Input for the next supplier evaluation.
Deviations per steel grade
S355J2+N11 deviations, mostly sulphur above the customer's requirement · Dravik Metall 7, Bergsplåt 41.44046 deviations, molybdenum below the limit · Kaltenau 4, Norrvik 2P265GH4 deviations, impact test at the wrong temperature · Bergsplåt 4- Your decisions — which deviations you approved or rejected, per supplier, with the reason.
- Traceability — which certificate went with which delivery, searchable by heat, order and customer, ready for the customer's audit.
Common questions
This is what you usually ask.
- What happens if the agent gets it wrong? The agent never approves a deviation on its own. It checks and shows what deviates, and the decision stays with your quality function. What meets every requirement with high confidence can go through without you, if you set it up that way. If it reads a value with low confidence it asks you to confirm it, and during the run-in a specialist on our side reviews the readings. Every step and every manual decision is logged.
- Which documents does it cover? Material certificates to EN 10204 and the certificates your customers require, see the list at the top of the page. Scanned documents are read the same way as digital ones.
- Does it read the content, or only check that the document exists? The content. The agent reads every value in the certificate and compares it with the standard and the customer's requirements, and checks that the heat is on the goods receipt in the ERP. A deviation comes to you before anything is sent.
- Do the suppliers have to change anything? No. The agent requests the documents by email or fetches them in the supplier's web portal, as you do today.
- Does it work with our systems? With the systems you already have: the ERP, email and Teams, a shared folder and the suppliers' and customers' web portals. There are ready-made connections to the common ERPs. See the section on IT.
- Where does our data end up? You choose: in the platform, in our Azure in Sweden or in your environment if your IT requires it, in your ERP, or in your own document archive such as SharePoint. Data processing agreement and the list of sub-processors on request.
- What does it cost? Implementation from SEK 25,000, a fixed price after the mapping: your systems connected and your customers' requirements entered within two to four weeks of us getting access. You pay for it only once you are satisfied; if you are not, you pay nothing for it. Operations from SEK 4,500 per month. What it comes to depends on the number of suppliers and customers, how many material certificates and other documents come in, and how many systems are to be connected. The run-in during the first three months is included. Unlimited users. Loading a historical archive is quoted separately.
- How long does it take? In operation within two to four weeks of us getting access to your systems, followed by a run-in of about three months where we follow the readings and the requirements together with you.
- How long are we tied in? Not at all. Operations run month by month with 30 days' notice and no fees for ending. Your data can be exported at any time, and on termination you receive your certificates and your history.
For your IT
How we implement and run it.
Show the technical overview
- Identity. The platform reads your mailboxes via Microsoft Graph, with rights only to the mailboxes you specify, and writes to the ERP with its own account with the least possible privileges. If the platform runs in your environment, the account is a service account in your Entra ID. No admin accounts, no shared passwords.
- Hosting. Runs in our Azure in Sweden by default, or in your environment if your IT requires it. You choose where the documents live: in the platform, in your ERP, or in your own document archive, such as SharePoint or a shared folder. If they stay with you, the platform stores the values, the checks, the decisions and a link to the document. Everything is encrypted, in transit and at rest.
- Integration. Email via Microsoft Graph. Ready-made connections to Monitor, Business Central, Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, Jeeves, Garp, Pyramid, SAP, M3, IFS, Visma and QAD, via the system's API where there is one, otherwise via the export and import files the system already has, or by the agent driving the browser in the system's own interface. Where there is only a web portal, at a supplier or a customer, the agent drives the browser via Playwright in the same way, the same clicks you make.**
- Document reading. Scanned and digital documents are read with text recognition in the environment the agent runs in. Every extracted value is saved with a reference to where in the document it is found.
- Credentials. API keys and the service account's secrets are kept in Key Vault in the environment the agent runs in, as are the logins to web portals without an API. Never in a prompt, never in the code.
- Decisions. The agent never approves a deviation on its own. The deviation arrives as a question in Teams, with the certificate and the customer's requirements side by side, and the heat is blocked from delivery in the web interface until a person on your side has decided. What meets every requirement with high confidence can go through without you, if you set it up that way. Who may approve a deviation is governed by rules you set yourselves.
- Traceability. Every action is logged with account, time, heat and order, and every manual decision is saved with its reasoning. Web portal steps are saved as screenshots. Everything can be exported at any time.
- The language model. Language models from leading providers, run within the EU. We choose the model for the task and switch when a better one exists. What is sent is the text of the document and, when the values need to be checked against the original, the page image.
- GDPR. The documents rarely contain personal data. Names, email addresses and phone numbers in the emails are replaced with placeholders before they go to the language model.
- Operations. Always lies with Cloudfox, from day one. We answer for the agent: new customer requirements, new document types, new suppliers. That it does the right thing and stops when it is unsure. That APIs are versioned, models are replaced and web portals are rebuilt. And the platform it runs on, when it runs in our Azure. If it runs in your environment, your IT department or operations partner looks after the servers, and we do the rest.
** Web portals can have terms of use that restrict automation. We check the terms of every web portal in the mapping. Where automation is not allowed we use the system's interface or a manual step instead.
Book 30 minutes.
Tell us how you handle the material certificates today, from goods receipt to customer, and we will show you where the agent does the most good first.
Your contact
Pontus Granborg
Co-founder, Cloudfox
Pontus has worked for 25 years with ERP systems and business development at manufacturers and wholesalers, and in recent years with building and managing AI flows in quality work.