The supplier academy

Everything between your harvest and the buyer's wire — taught plainly.

Four foundation courses, written by people who have actually shipped containers and papered letters of credit. End to end: roughly two and a half hours. Free. Ends in a verifiable certificate that buyers and financiers can check from a URL.

Start the supplier track About the Academy

Why suppliers take it

The discount on a first shipment is rarely the price. It is the paperwork.

The first international order is almost always the hardest one. The container arrives late, the phytosanitary certificate is issued at the wrong date, the letter of credit bounces on a discrepancy nobody flagged, the buyer's compliance team asks for a beneficial-ownership declaration with twelve hours notice. Each of these is solvable. Each is also a separate margin loss when it goes wrong unannounced.

The supplier track collapses that learning curve. By the end of the four courses, a first-time exporter has a working mental model of who they are selling to, how the buyer's bank will pay them, what an Incoterm 2020 reference actually obliges, and what evidence stack an EUDR-compliant or 3TG-compliant supply chain requires.

The four courses

Three foundation courses plus a certification capstone.

Each course breaks down into three modules. Each module is three short lessons — usually ten minutes of reading or one short video. You can take them in any order, but the capstone (Course 04) assumes you have completed the foundations.

Foundation

Export Readiness for Smallholder Suppliers

~35 min

The fundamentals every supplier needs before approaching an international buyer — who buyers are, the regulatory paperwork that gates a first export, and the document chain that has to land cleanly for a first shipment to pay.

Module 1
Who is on the other side of the deal
- · The three buyer archetypes — specialty, multinational trader, end manufacturer
- · What buyers look for, and what scares them off
- · How international buyers actually find suppliers
Module 2
Registering and KYC
- · Exporter registration in your country (UCDA, KEPHIS, COCOBOD, KMA, others)
- · The compliance documents every buyer asks for
- · Avoiding common KYC bounces — name mismatches, expired certs, beneficial-ownership ambiguity
Module 3
Your first international shipment
- · Quoting on FOB vs CIF — what sits inside each, with a worked example
- · The document chain — the core eight documents, sequence and timing
- · What goes wrong on the first shipment, and the recovery playbook

Foundation

Trade Finance for Suppliers

~40 min

How international payment actually works, why your buyer is offering the payment terms they are, and how to fund your operation between harvest and getting paid. Includes a deep dive on letters of credit and three working-capital tools that work for suppliers without a long credit history.

Module 1
How buyers pay
- · The four payment methods — advance, documentary collection, LC, open account
- · Risk allocation under each method — who carries what, when
- · What your buyer’s choice of payment method tells you
Module 2
Letters of credit deconstructed
- · Walking through an LC line by line — the SWIFT MT700 fields that matter
- · Discrepancies and how they kill payments — the avoidable list
- · Sight vs usance — discounting, forfaiting, and when each helps you
Module 3
Working capital for suppliers
- · Pre-shipment finance against an accepted order
- · Warehouse-receipt financing against verified stock
- · Receivables finance and factoring — when to use which

Foundation

Incoterms in Practice (2020 rules)

~30 min

The eleven Incoterms 2020 rules in plain language — what each one allocates between buyer and seller, when to use which, and the most common contracting mistakes. Pairs with a single ICC explainer video and a quick reference table.

Module 1
The eleven rules at a glance
- · The four groups — E, F, C, D — and the logic behind them
- · The eleven rules: EXW, FCA, FAS, FOB, CFR, CIF, CPT, CIP, DAP, DPU, DDP
- · The two transport categories — any mode vs sea/inland waterway
Module 2
Picking the right rule
- · When FOB is right and when FCA is better — the container-on-vessel question
- · CIF vs CIP — insurance cover defaults under the 2020 revision
- · DPU and the unloading question — what changed from 2010
Module 3
Drafting the contract clause
- · The named place — never leave it ambiguous
- · Insurance cover level — ICC A vs C, when to override the default
- · The Incoterms revision reference — why naming "2020" matters

Certification capstone

Building a Certified Supply Chain

~40 min

The capstone of the supplier track. Brings the previous three courses together into the practical question of how to make your supply chain legible to international buyers, regulators, and financiers — and earn the Commodity Plus Supplier Foundations certificate.

Module 1
Verifying the upstream
- · Farmer registries — what to capture, what to verify, what to leave out
- · Geolocation for EUDR-grade traceability — plot-level evidence, polygon vs point
- · Quality grading at intake — the inspector handover and the immutable record
Module 2
Demonstrating compliance
- · EUDR Article 9 due-diligence statements — what an importer actually needs from you
- · Conflict-mineral regimes — ITSCI, OECD due diligence, EU Regulation 2017/821
- · Food safety and certification — HACCP, ISO 22000, GLOBALG.A.P., organic, fair trade
Module 3
Passing the assessment
- · Sample case studies and how to read them
- · The final quiz — what is graded and how
- · Earning and using the Commodity Plus Supplier Foundations certificate

The certificate

Commodity Plus Supplier Foundations.

Pass the assessment at the end of Course 04 and the platform issues a numbered certificate stamped against your account. Each certificate carries a public verification URL — your buyer's compliance team, a financier evaluating a working- capital application, or a trade body endorsing your file can check authenticity directly without contacting us.

The certificate does not substitute for a national exporter licence or a sector-specific quality certification. It says you have completed a structured curriculum on the practical mechanics of international supply, and that you understand the documentary, financing, and Incoterms framework you will be operating in. Buyers reading a verified supplier profile see the certificate alongside your track record on the platform.

Who it is for

First-time exporters, cooperatives moving from local to international, and operations staff at supplier companies.

If you have never exported

Start with Course 01. The first module deconstructs who international buyers are and how they decide. By the end of the course you will know which regulatory bodies you need to register with and what compliance documents the buyer's team will ask for.

If you have shipped once or twice

Skip to Course 02. The mechanics of letters of credit and payment methods are where most early-stage exporters lose margin. The Incoterms course (03) and the certification capstone (04) follow naturally.

If you run a supplier organisation

Operations and commercial staff benefit from a shared mental model. Several supplier organisations have run the full track as a team curriculum — the certified completion gives a consistent baseline across the team.

Begin

Two and a half hours stand between you and a verified credential.

Create a supplier account, open the Academy, and start with Course 01. There is no cost, no advertising, and no upsell at any point in the track.