By Dave Jensen, CEO, CoPS on Doody · Commercial Pet Waste Station Service · October 2026
A vendor scorecard rates a vendor's actual performance against what the contract promised, using the same categories and the same scale every review period. For a community manager, it does two jobs. It turns "the landscaper has been slipping" into a dated record, and it gives the board something concrete to look at when the contract comes up for renewal.
The template below works for almost any recurring service vendor: landscaping, pool, janitorial, trash, snow, or pet waste. It uses five categories, a 1-to-5 scale with written definitions, suggested weights, and a quarterly routine. A version for pet waste vendors follows, built on the five dimensions we use to define specialist-level service.
Community managers use three related tools, and they get mixed up. Each one answers a different question.
This post covers the first. If you're comparing bids, see how to compare pet waste proposals side by side. If you're scoring the program as a whole, see scoring the Seven Elements on a property walk.
These five categories fit almost any recurring service. The criteria under each change by vendor; the categories don't.
Service delivery. Did the work happen on the schedule and to the scope the contract describes? Visits on the defined day, every location covered, nothing skipped.
Quality of work. When the work was done, was it done well? Clean results, no damage, and no repeat problems at the same spot.
Communication and responsiveness. Did the vendor tell you about problems before residents did? Did it answer calls and emails within the stated response window, and was it professional with residents and staff?
Compliance and documentation. Did required reports and proof that the work was performed arrive on time? Did the vendor follow site rules and safety requirements? (Insurance and licenses are a separate pass-or-fail check, below.)
Billing and value. Were invoices accurate and on the agreed terms? Did extra charges come with prior approval? Is the vendor delivering what you're paying for?
These categories line up with how procurement professionals measure suppliers. The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply lists service quality, delivery accuracy, customer service, account management, and cost among the common measures, and recommends combining objective data with the experience of the people the supplier serves and the supplier's own view. The National Institute of Standards and Technology's manufacturing program calls scorecards "critical to measuring performance, driving improvements, and determining which suppliers to reward with continuing or increased business."
Some things shouldn't be averaged in. A vendor with a lapsed certificate of insurance or an expired license shouldn't be scored at all until the lapse is fixed. Check these as pass or fail at the start of every review, before you score anything else.
☐ Certificate of insurance on file, current, and showing the coverage your contract requires
☐ If your contract requires additional insured status, the policy endorsement showing it is on file (a certificate alone isn't proof)
☐ Business license and any trade license current, in the vendor's name, and covering the work
☐ Every report or record the contract requires has been received
The endorsement point is easy to miss. Oregon's insurance regulator, for example, notes that a certificate of insurance is issued for information only and doesn't change coverage; adding the association as an additional insured happens in the policy itself. CAI's best practices for community association maintenance recommend keeping certificates for every contractor, and in some cases additional insured endorsements naming the association, and suggest consulting counsel on what your association needs.
A scorecard needs a defined scale. If a 5 means "no complaints this quarter," every vendor scores a 5 until the month something goes wrong. Define every point in writing, and make the middle of the scale mean the vendor met the contract.
This scale is adapted from the one federal agencies use to rate their contractors. The Federal Acquisition Regulation rates each evaluation factor on five levels, from exceptional to unsatisfactory, requires a written narrative behind every rating, and says evaluations should rest on "objective facts supported by program and contract or order performance data." It also includes a rule worth borrowing word for word: contractors "will not be evaluated with a rating lower than Satisfactory solely for not performing beyond the requirements of the contract." In other words, a vendor that does exactly what the contract says earns a 3, and a 4 or 5 has to be earned.
Not every category matters equally for every vendor, and there's no official standard for the weights; procurement guides vary widely. Compliance may deserve more weight for a pool vendor than for a pet waste vendor, and service delivery more weight than paperwork for almost anyone. Assign weights that add up to 100, and keep them the same for that vendor from quarter to quarter so the trend means something.
Treat these as a starting point for most recurring services, then adjust:
To calculate the weighted score, multiply each category's score by its weight, add the results, and divide by 100. A vendor that scores 4, 3, 2, 5, and 4 with the weights above comes out at 3.5: solid on the paperwork, weak on communication, and due a written corrective action request on communication.
Fill in the header once per vendor, then copy the scoring table each quarter.
The scorecard reflects only what you collected during the quarter. Keep a running folder for each vendor and drop these in as they happen.
☐ Work orders and the dates they were closed
☐ Completion notices or other proof the work was done
☐ Your complaint log, with the date, location, and vendor involved
☐ Notes and photos from your property walks
☐ Emails about problems, with the time you reported them and the time the vendor responded
☐ Invoices, with any charges you didn't expect
☐ The current certificate of insurance and any licenses the contract requires
A score with no evidence behind it is an opinion, and it won't hold up when a vendor disputes it or a board member asks why. Keep scoring independent of gifts or personal ties to the vendor, too. In Virginia, for example, management firms must keep a written code of conduct that covers gifts and other remuneration from service providers and the disclosure of conflicts of interest.
Share the scorecard with the vendor. A vendor that never sees its score can't fix what you're measuring, and a vendor that disagrees should have the chance to show you something you missed. A 20- to 30-minute call each quarter is usually enough.
☐ Walk through each category score and the evidence behind it.
☐ Ask the vendor for its side, and note anything that changes a score.
☐ Agree on corrective actions, each with an owner and a date.
☐ Confirm the next review date.
☐ Send a short written summary within two business days.
Give the vendor a set window to respond in writing to anything it disputes. Federal contractors get 14 calendar days, which is a reasonable default.
One more thing a scorecard reveals: you can only score what the contract defines. The FAR tells federal agencies to prefer service contracts built around that idea: performance-based contracts, structured "around the results to be achieved," with "measurable performance standards" and a stated method for checking them. Before your next renewal, check whether your contract states the scope, a regular service schedule, a response window for problems between visits, and how performance will be checked. If it doesn't, add them, so the next scorecard has something real to measure.
Decide your thresholds before you score, so the response to a low score isn't improvised. These are reasonable defaults:
The goal is to make sure the board hears about a problem from you, with dates and evidence, before it hears about it from a resident.
Pet waste service is easy to score badly, because a station that looks fine from the parking lot can still be missed every other week. For pet waste vendors, we suggest scoring five dimensions that describe what specialist-level service looks like: consistency, accountability, communication, expertise, and commitment. They're observable standards, and we suggest you hold every provider to them, including us. Score them on the same 1-to-5 scale, in place of the five general categories, weighting them equally unless you have a reason not to.
If you're interviewing pet waste providers rather than scoring one you already have, our 12 questions to ask before hiring a pet waste vendor cover the same ground from the other side.
Boards need to know which vendors are performing and which need attention, not every scorecard. Put this table in the packet each quarter and keep the full scorecards in the vendor files. For pet waste, the vendor scorecard is one part of program management, which covers everything outside the contract.
Five categories cover most service vendors: service delivery, quality of work, communication and responsiveness, compliance and documentation, and billing and value. Add criteria under each that match the vendor's contract.
Quarterly for vendors that serve the community every week or month. For seasonal vendors, such as snow removal or pool service, score at the end of each season.
Yes. Share the scorecard, discuss it, and give the vendor a chance to respond. A vendor that knows how it's measured can improve; one that finds out at renewal can't.
They're the same idea. "Supplier scorecard" is the more common term for vendors that deliver goods; "vendor scorecard" fits the service contractors most communities use. The structure is the same.
The five categories and the scale can stay the same across vendors. Change the criteria under each category and the weights to fit each service.
Go back to the evidence. If the vendor shows you something you missed, change the score and note why. If it doesn't, keep the score, note the disagreement, and let the next quarter's evidence speak.
A vendor scorecard turns impressions into a record. Score every vendor on the same five categories, define each point on the scale so a 3 means the contract was met, weight the categories for each service, and score from evidence. Share it with the vendor every quarter, act on low scores before renewal, and give the board a one-line summary instead of a stack of opinions.
Sources, all retrieved October 2026
Federal Acquisition Regulation 42.1502 and 42.1503 (Table 42-1): https://www.acquisition.gov/far/42.1503
FAR 2.101, 37.601, and 37.603 (performance-based acquisition): https://www.acquisition.gov/far/37.601
National Institute of Standards and Technology, MEP Supply Chain (updated July 14, 2025): https://www.nist.gov/mep/supply-chain
Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, Supplier Performance: https://www.cips.org/intelligence-hub/supplier-relationship-management/performance
CAI Foundation, Best Practices: Community Association Maintenance (2023): https://www.caionline.org/getmedia/1391a064-ef30-4c89-af51-3951d70a20e5/bestpracticescamaintenance-final2_.pdf
Oregon Division of Financial Regulation, Modifying Insurance Certificates: https://dfr.oregon.gov/business/licensing/insurance/pages/modifying-insurance-certificates.aspx
18VAC48-50-200: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/admincodefull/title18/agency48/chapter50/partV/
.png)
.png){kind=small}
.png){kind=small}
