Most general contractors do not build with their own hands any more; they build through subcontractors. That makes subcontractor management one of the highest-leverage skills in the business, even though it rarely gets the attention estimating or sales does. Get it wrong and you inherit someone else's delays, quality problems and unpaid-bill disputes. Get it right and your subs are the reason jobs run smoothly. This guide is a practical system, from qualifying a sub to paying the last invoice, with a bid and scope checklist you can use on the next package.
Why subcontractor problems become your problems
When a sub shows up late, does substandard work or walks off mid-job, the client does not care whose payroll that crew was on. They hold you responsible, because your name is on their contract. The same goes for compliance: if a sub's insurance has lapsed or their WCB clearance is out of date, the exposure generally lands on the general contractor who let them on site.
Treating subcontractor management as a phone number and a handshake pushes all of that risk onto your business without you controlling any of it. A system fixes that.
Qualify subs before you hire them
The best time to solve a subcontractor problem is before you sign them. A short qualification step, done the same way every time, filters out the subs who will cost you the most later.
- Confirm current insurance and, where it applies, WCB or WorkSafe clearance before the first day on site
- Ask for references from recent, comparable jobs
- Check licensing or trade certification requirements for your province or state
- Start a new sub on a smaller job before trusting them with a critical-path task
A bid and scope checklist for every sub package
Most sub disputes start in the scope, not on site. A subcontract that says roughly what needs doing, rather than precisely, leaves you and the sub to argue later about who owns the gap. Send the same checklist with every package you put out to bid, and ask each sub to price against it.
Then compare the bids line by line against the checklist, not by the total. The cheapest number is often the one that left out disposal, the permit or the second visit, and finding that after award costs you the difference.
- The drawings and specification sections the price is based on, with their revision numbers
- What is included, line by line, and what is excluded
- Who supplies what: materials, equipment, disposal, temporary power, permits and inspections
- Quantities, and unit rates for anything variable, such as sheathing replaced per sheet or rock per cubic metre
- Allowances, stated as amounts, and what happens when a selection costs more
- Schedule: start, duration, what they need finished before they arrive, and how much notice they get
- Site rules: access, working hours, protection, clean-up and where waste goes
- How changes work: written and priced before any extra work, at the agreed rates
- Payment: how often they claim, what a claim must include, holdback where it applies, and when they are paid
- Insurance and WCB or workers' compensation evidence before mobilising
- Warranty, closeout documents and how deficiencies are fixed and signed off
Put scope, price and schedule in writing every time
A verbal agreement with a sub is a dispute waiting to happen, the same way an unpriced change order is. The checklist above becomes the subcontract's scope: what is included, what is excluded, the price, the schedule and the standard of work, agreed before any work starts. Our free scope of work template has the same structure if you want a starting point.
Track compliance documents without the scramble
Insurance certificates and WCB or workers' compensation clearances expire, and they tend to lapse in the middle of a job rather than between projects. Tracked on a spreadsheet, or from memory, you find out a sub was uninsured after something has already gone wrong.
- Keep each sub's expiry dates on their record, not scattered across email
- Check the dates before each payment, not only at signing: some boards' clearances cover work only up to the day they are issued
- Confirm current requirements for insurance, WCB or WorkSafe, or workers' compensation with your insurer or advisor, since they vary by province and state
Coordinate schedules so subs aren't waiting or colliding
A sub who arrives at a site that is not ready costs you twice: once in the wasted trip, and again in the goodwill you spend asking them back. Two trades competing for the same space because nobody checked the schedule costs the same.
A current schedule with each sub's work on it, and notice when it moves, removes most of this friction. When a job shifts, the trades affected should hear before they load the truck, not when they arrive.
Handle sub invoices, holdback and change orders cleanly
Paying subs correctly and on time is not only good practice. In provinces and states with prompt payment legislation it can be a legal obligation with deadlines attached. The rules differ by jurisdiction and keep changing, so confirm yours with a construction lawyer or accountant.
Change orders apply to subs exactly as they apply to clients: no extra work starts without a priced, written change that updates what you owe. Holdback, where it applies, should be tracked per sub so it is released when it is due rather than forgotten. And match every sub invoice to what you agreed to buy before you approve it.
What BuildersBridge does for subcontractors today
This is what ships now, so you can judge it against the system above.
- Suppliers and subcontractors live in one directory, each with their trade, contact details and an insurance or WCB expiry date. A date in the past shows as Insurance lapsed on the list.
- [Purchase orders](/solutions/purchase-order-software) to a sub are raised against a job. Once sent, a PO counts as committed cost; the sub's bills are matched to it and move that cost to actual, so the job budget shows what is owed before the invoice arrives.
- Subcontractors can be assigned to schedule entries alongside your crew.
- You can invite a sub to sign in with the subcontractor role. They see the job files you mark "Subcontractors can see", and no money figures.
- Suppliers and subcontractors can be imported from a CSV when you move from another system.
What is planned, not built
A dedicated subcontractor portal, where subs see their scope, submit progress and send their invoices, is on our roadmap. Until it ships, subs do not accept purchase orders, submit bids or upload bills themselves: you send the PO and record the bill. There is no bid invitation or bid-levelling tool either, which is why the checklist above is a document rather than a feature.
If a portal for subs is a requirement today, other platforms ship one, and our comparison page shows which.