Subcontractors: who did what, and who gets paid

Bringing in a subcontractor solves a capacity problem on Tuesday and creates a record keeping problem for the rest of the year.

Their invoice arrives three weeks later covering four days across two jobs, and the person approving it has to reconstruct which day went where.

Agree the scope in writing, even for a day

A subcontractor you use often gets booked by text, and that works until the day the work is not what either of you assumed. Then you are arguing about a rate nobody recorded.

A short written order fixes it: the job, the site, the dates, the rate, and whether materials are yours or theirs. That last point causes more disputes than the rate does, and it takes six words to settle.

Make their time land against a job, not against a week

One change makes subcontractor costs usable. Their time records against the job as it happens, rather than off an invoice later.

Where they work alongside your own people, the simplest version is that they check in at the job the same way your team does. What that record costs the person doing the work is close to nothing, and check in at the job, not the office covers it.

You can then hold their invoice against the days recorded, instead of approving it because it looks about right.

The paperwork arrives before the first day

Every subcontractor comes with documents that expire: licences, insurances, tickets for particular work. You carry the cost of a lapsed one, and it surfaces at the worst possible moment.

The expiry dates belong where a filter reads them, so next month's surface before somebody stands on a site. A document somebody has to hunt for is a document nobody checks.

Approve against the order, and pay on time

The invoice meets the written order and the recorded days, rather than your memory of the job. Where they differ, the conversation happens once and against evidence.

Then pay to the agreed terms. A reliable subcontractor chooses their contractors partly on this. Paying predictably beats a slightly better rate on the day you need somebody at short notice.

Know the real cost of the trade you subcontract most

Total what you paid a given trade over a year and set it against what you billed for that portion of the work. Most businesses find one trade where the margin is thin enough that hiring would be cheaper, and another where subcontracting is obviously right.

That comparison only exists where the costs tied to jobs as they happened. Reconstructed from invoices at year end it is guesswork wearing a spreadsheet.

Photographs cover the gap in supervision

You are not on site for most of the work you subcontract, which means you accept it on their word and find out later. Before and after photographs against the job close that gap without a supervision visit.

They also protect the subcontractor from a customer complaint about work that was fine, which is worth saying to them when you ask for them.

What to do first

• A short written order carries the job, the dates, the rate and who supplies materials
• Their time records against the job on the day, never off their invoice
• Hold licence and insurance expiry dates somewhere you can filter
• Every invoice meets the order and the recorded days
• Payment runs to terms, because that is what buys availability
• Compare a year of one trade's cost against what you billed for it