Reply today, promise a date rather than a result, and spend the next two days gathering what an assessor needs. Do not fill in the template yourself; a self-authored document is the one that gets rejected.

What to reply today

The customer is usually a procurement or accessibility contact working through a checklist. They need to know two things: whether a document exists, and when they will have one. A reply that covers both keeps the deal moving.

Thanks for the request. We do not have a current Accessibility Conformance Report on file. We are engaging an independent assessor and expect a draft ACR by [date]. Which edition does your procurement process require: WCAG, Section 508, or EN 301 549? If you have an accessibility questionnaire as well, please send it so the report can answer it directly.

Three things are doing the work in that reply. It acknowledges the gap without apology. It commits to a date, which the buyer can put in their timeline. And it asks the edition question, which saves a week of testing the wrong thing.

What not to promise

  • "We are fully WCAG compliant." No product is, and the buyer's accessibility office will test that claim.
  • "We will send the VPAT tomorrow." A document produced overnight tells the reviewer it was not tested.
  • A certificate. There is no WCAG certification. An ACR reports test results for a version on a date.
  • A fix date for issues you have not found yet. Commit to the report date. Commit to remediation dates after the report exists.

What to gather before engaging anyone

An assessor can scope and price the work in one call if these are ready. Without them, the first week is spent asking.

  1. Product tour. A list of unique screens and flows, grouped by user role. Ten minutes of screen recording works.
  2. Environments. A staging URL that matches production, one test account per role, and any feature flags that need to be on.
  3. Tech stack. Framework, component library, design system if any, and third-party embeds such as chat widgets, video players, or payment forms.
  4. Prior work. Any earlier audit, scanner report, or ACR, even an old one.
  5. The buyer's exact ask. Forward the email. The wording tells the assessor which edition and which standard the buyer is working from.
  6. The deadline. The date the buyer needs the document, not the date the contract signs.
  7. A developer contact. One person who can answer questions about components and ship fixes.

Who should own it

One person owns the request end to end. Sales owns the buyer relationship and the date. Product or engineering owns the fixes. If nobody owns the document itself, it becomes the thing everyone assumes someone else sent.

If the buyer is a university or a government agency

Expect their own testing. Campus accessibility offices and agency 508 coordinators routinely run a product through a screen reader before signing off, and they compare their findings with your ACR. An accurate ACR with Partially Supports entries and clear remarks matches what they find. A document with Supports on every row does not.