Many of our clients are unfamiliar with VPATs, but their buyers are requesting that they produce a VPAT before their product or service will be considered for purchase. Give us 2.1 minutes and we’ll explain exactly what you need to know about VPAT accessibility.
A VPAT is a standard document template that provides for an accounting of the accessibility of a product or service for a given technical standard.
Report Card Analogy
Think of a VPAT as like a blank report card that a teacher fills in. Only this report card is specifically for accessibility and the student is your product or service.
VPAT stands for Voluntary Product Accessibility Template.
When the VPAT is filled in and completed, it creates an ACR.
So the ACR is the actual report card and fittingly, ACR stands for Accessibility Conformance Report.
YOur Grade
So that’s all that’s going on here. We’re just getting a report card for our product or service’s accessibility and then turning the report over to the buyer (our parent in this scenario, if you will).
The buyer will then use the ACR to determine whether or not your product or service’s accessibility meets their requirements for purchase.
And remember, our product or service is graded against a technical standard (e.g., WCAG 2.0 AA). So the more criteria (i.e., requirements) the standard has, the more criteria we can potentially be nonconformant with.
But note that just because we have an accessibility issue doesn’t mean our product will not be considered or ultimately selected, it just means we have an instance where we don’t technically conform to the standard.
Filling Out a VPAT
Anyone can download and fill out a VPAT, but the whole point of the documentation is to have an accurate and complete accounting of the accessibility of a product or service. And the only way to do accomplish this is to have a technical accessibility expert audit your product or service.
One shift that has really taken hold is buyers are now scrutinizing ACRs because they want to make sure they’ve been issued independently (and not from the seller). A seller obviously has some bias and they usually won’t have the in-house expertise to fill out the accessibility table so buyers were increasingly requesting ACRs from third-party specialists in 2024 and this trend will only increase in 2025.
VPAT Document
You can download a VPAT for free from ITIC.org. Note that there are multiple editions to choose from:
- VPAT 2.5 Rev EU
- VPAT 2.5 INT
- VPAT 2.5 508
- VPAT 2.5 WCAG
Which edition you use depends on what technical standards you’re trying to make your product or service conformant with. As a default, we recommend the WCAG edition (and you can always ask for our recommendation). If you’re in doubt, ask your target buyer if they need a specific edition of the VPAT to be used.
VPAT vs. ACR
You’ll often hear the terms VPAT and ACR are commonly used interchangeably. For example, “We need to see a VPAT for your product.” Just note that when procurement agents request a VPAT, it’s an ACR that is technically being requested.
VPAT Services
If you need an independently issued ACR, we’re happy to help. Just send us a message and we’ll take it from there.
