Many clients are concerned with the turnaround time for their VPAT / ACR. They usually need the ACR quickly because they just found out it’s required for the procurement process (and the buyer needs it before they can continue).
We’ve helped many clients who need VPAT services in a hurry.
We can potentially have your ACR delivered in as soon as 5 days (with our expedited service). If your digital asset has 30+ pages or screens, we may need a few more days.
This is because we must audit your digital asset (which takes a lot of time) and then use the audit report to fill in your VPAT (which can take 2-5 hours depending on the VPAT edition).
What’s important to note is that this scenario doesn’t result in any issues being fixed. Yes, you’ll have an ACR to deliver to your buyer, but the ACR will simply reflect your digital asset’s current state of accessibility.
And if you haven’t worked on accessibility, there will be issues that show up in your ACR.
Strategic Approach
Because a deadline is imminent and the ACR is typically needed ASAP, what some clients do is take a strategic approach:
They’ll have us issue the ACR along with the audit report and provide this to the buyer. And then they’ll continue fixing the issues as fast as possible. Once their team has finished remediation, they’ll let us know and have us validate the fixes.
For each issue that we’ve validated as resolved, that no longer shows up in the ACR.
Once their digital asset is fully conformant or they’re satisfied with the progress, they’ll then have us issue a second ACR. They can then deliver this to the buyer and significantly improve their chances of winning the purchase (because they’ve dramatically improved their accessibility).
So by purchasing technical support hours (for validation) and a second VPAT service, the client is effectively able to play Saved by the Bell and slide that second improved ACR under the principal’s door just in time.
Remediation Timing
What’s key during the remediation phase is that the client makes fixes at a brisk pace. The timing of the second ACR is largely up to how fast the clients’ team can successfully fix issues.
We’re very responsive and will complete validation within 5 days of being notified that fixes have been completed, but your team must move quickly to get the ACR back sooner.
How AI Speeds Up the Process
Clients track issues and we validate issues inside of our accessibility platform, Accessibility Tracker. One feature clients especially like is Tracker has AI to help your team with fixes. The AI is right inside the dashboard and has access to your audit data so all you have to do is select one of the tools and you get instant answers to help you understand the issue and exactly how to fix it.
This means fixes are made faster and more fixes are made correctly the first time. Of course, this means the project finishes sooner.
If you need help fulfilling a VPAT request, contact us and we’ll reply right away.
