Your sales team just got a procurement questionnaire back from a Fortune 500 prospect. Buried in section four, between data residency and SOC 2 questions, is a single line: "Please attach your current VPAT." Nobody on the team knows what that is, the deal is worth six figures, and the response is due in five business days.
This happens constantly. We wrote our VPAT buyer's guide for the procurement side of that conversation, the reviewer trying to evaluate a vendor's document. This article is for the other side of the table: the SaaS vendor who has to actually produce one, often for the first time, under deadline pressure.
What a VPAT and an ACR Actually Are
A VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) is the standardized template. An ACR (Accessibility Conformance Report) is the completed document you get when you fill that template out for your specific product. In practice, people use the terms interchangeably, and buyers will ask for either name expecting the same thing: a structured, criterion-by-criterion statement of how your product conforms to WCAG, and often Section 508 and EN 301 549 as well.
The current template is published and maintained by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), and it exists specifically so buyers can compare vendors using one format instead of reading twenty different accessibility statements written twenty different ways. We covered how that statement differs from a general accessibility statement in our accessibility statement and VPAT article.
Step 1: Decide Which Edition You Need
The ITI publishes edition variants:
- WCAG Edition covers WCAG 2.0/2.1/2.2 success criteria only. This is the minimum most enterprise and EU buyers expect.
- Section 508 Edition adds the specific federal procurement requirements. If you are selling to a US federal agency or a contractor bound by Section 508, you need this edition. Our Section 508 government contractors guide covers who that applies to.
- EU Edition (EN 301 549) maps to the European standard referenced by the European Accessibility Act. If you have EU enterprise customers, expect this to be requested increasingly often through 2026 and beyond.
- International Edition combines all three into one document, which is what we recommend for any SaaS company selling across US, federal, and EU markets, since it lets you produce one document instead of three.
Step 2: Run a Real Conformance Test Before You Write a Word
The single biggest mistake vendors make is writing the VPAT from assumption rather than from testing. A VPAT filled out by a product manager guessing "probably supports" across the board is worse than no VPAT at all, because a sophisticated buyer's accessibility team will test your product against the document and catch the gap. That damages trust more than an honest "partially supports" would have.
Before drafting, run:
- An automated scan (axe, WAVE) to catch the mechanical issues quickly.
- A manual keyboard-only pass through every core workflow, not just the login screen.
- A screen reader pass (NVDA or VoiceOver) through at least the primary user journeys.
If your team has never done this, it is worth reading our SaaS product accessibility guide first, since fixing the obvious issues before you document them will produce a far stronger VPAT than documenting the product as it stands today.
Step 3: Fill Out Each Success Criterion Honestly
For every WCAG success criterion, the template asks for one of four conformance levels:
- Supports: the feature or product fully meets the criterion.
- Partially Supports: some functionality meets the criterion, some does not.
- Does Not Support: the majority of functionality does not meet the criterion.
- Not Applicable: the criterion does not apply to your product (for example, a criterion about audio-only content in a product with no audio).
For every "Partially Supports" or "Does Not Support" entry, add a remarks note explaining specifically what fails and, ideally, your remediation timeline. Buyers and their accessibility reviewers read the remarks column far more closely than the rating column. A vague "under review" note reads as evasive. A specific note ("Data table sort controls are not currently keyboard operable; fix scheduled for Q1") reads as credible and often clears procurement review even with an honest gap disclosed.
Step 4: Get an Independent Review Before You Publish It
A VPAT you wrote about your own product, with no outside verification, is exactly what a skeptical enterprise buyer expects and discounts. An independently tested and reviewed ACR carries materially more weight in procurement, particularly with government and regulated-industry buyers who have seen self-reported VPATs fall apart under a real audit. If procurement clauses are new to your sales process entirely, our accessibility RFP and procurement clauses guide explains the broader language buyers are increasingly writing into contracts.
Step 5: Keep It Current
A VPAT is a snapshot, not a permanent certificate. Every major release that changes UI, adds a workflow, or touches core interaction patterns can shift your conformance status. Vendors who ship an ACR once and never update it get caught out when a buyer's technical reviewer tests the current product against a two-year-old document. Set a recurring internal review, ideally every major release or at minimum annually, and date-stamp every version you publish.
A Short Checklist Before You Send Yours
- Confirm which edition (WCAG, 508, EU, or International) the buyer actually needs.
- Run automated, keyboard, and screen reader testing before writing a single rating.
- Fill in specific, honest remarks for every partial or non-conformance, including a timeline where possible.
- Get an outside review rather than self-certifying only.
- Date it, version it, and set a recurring re-test cadence.
Get an Independently Verified ACR
If your team is staring down a procurement deadline with no VPAT in hand, or with one you are not confident will survive a technical review, run our free accessibility checklist to get a quick read on where your product stands, or request a free audit and we will test your actual product and help you produce a VPAT that holds up when a buyer's accessibility team checks it against the real thing. Reach us directly at experts@wcag.world with your deadline and we will tell you honestly whether it is achievable.
A well-documented VPAT will not fix a product with real accessibility gaps. But an honest, independently verified one is often the difference between a deal that closes on schedule and one that stalls quietly in procurement review.