why does one customer have something different than another when the question is the same

Different answer to the same question is usually not an error

Two customers can ask literally the same question and yet receive a different answer from the chain file — and that can simply be correct. The question itself is often not as identical as it appears. For example, customer A asks about ISO/IEC 27001 measures in the context of supplier assessment, customer B asks exactly the same question but means the ten measures of Article 21(2) of the NIS2 Directive. Both questions may be formulated in the portal as "describe your security measures", but the underlying framework — and thus the relevant answer from the file — is different.

A second explanation is scope or reference date. The file contains, for example, the number of employees or the countries where the company has establishments, and this may have changed between two completion moments. See for that type of source data how many employees the undertaking has and in which countries the enterprise has establishments — if a customer asks half a year later and the file has been updated, a different answer is not an inconsistency but an update. A difference in reporting framework also plays a role: the voluntary VSME Basic Module of EFRAG often requires less detail than what a customer needs under the CSRD (Directive 2022/2464), so the same topic can be answered with a shorter or more comprehensive response without either being incorrect.

Why that follows from the underlying framework, not from the file

The system fills in per question the answer that fits the framework that customer uses — ISO/IEC 27001 Annex A, the ten measures of NIS2 Article 21(2), or the VSME module — and that framework determines the scope of the answer, not a choice of the file itself. In case of doubt, it is useful to compare the question in the customer's portal with the underlying standard referenced, and check whether the answer fits that.