The laboratory has many suppliers. Suppliers can be service companies that perform maintenance on equipment and facilities, or suppliers of goods.

It is crucial to select a supplier of which you are certain that they can deliver what you need and which most closely suits your demands. It happens often that reagents are already almost expired due to long delivery times, or that reagents of an older lot are delivered than the previous delivery. These experiences have to be taken into account when selecting a supplier. It is important that all your demands are recorded in a proper contract with the supplier and that these demands have been met after reception of services. If this is routinely monitored in a standardized way, you have confidence that you spend money for the highest return. If you see that your demands are not met this procedure gives you ground to terminate the contract and postpone/cancel payment as you have documented everything and are able to prove that contractual agreements have not been met.

It is also important that the laboratory does not indiscriminately accept gifts. For example, if the laboratory accepts a piece of equipment given to it without charge, it may not be possible to maintain the piece of equipment or reagents are difficult to obtain. This way the laboratory is stuck with a piece of equipment that it cannot use for routine testing. If this is the case it is better to politely refuse the gift, maybe indicating an alternative which is useful for the laboratory.