Subcontractors will not create an account on a builder's system, and chasing their hours and receipts by text and email is exactly where a job's real labour cost goes missing. Each sub gets one link. They see their own work and nothing else, and everything they file arrives waiting for you to approve. Instead of five tools taped together, your subs report into the same system your own crews clock into — so their cost lands on the same job.
Also called: sub hub · sub magic link · subcontractor reports hours · 1099 crew portal
Your subs report without ever creating an account
Each subcontractor crew gets one durable link, copied off its crew card. It lists that sub's assigned stages across every one of your jobs and lets them report hours or units, expenses and progress. Subs will not sign up for their builder's software, and asking them to is how subcontract labour ends up invisible until the invoice arrives.
You ask the roofing sub to make an account, he never does, and his days only show up on the invoice a month later.
A sub is running his own business — he will use a link, not learn your software. One link with nothing to sign up for is the only version that gets used, and used is the whole point.
A sub sees their own stages and nothing else
The link resolves to one crew inside one company, and every read and every write is held to it. They cannot see another sub's work, your other crews, or anything about the jobs beyond the stages assigned to them. An expired or unknown link is a flat not-found.
A sub sees another sub's price, or your other jobs, and the next bid comes in higher.
A sub trusts a link that only shows him his own work — and you never worry what else he can see. The link resolves to one crew inside one company, and every read and write is held to it.
It asks for whatever that crew is actually paid on
Try itHours for an hourly crew. Units — square feet, squares, whatever you measure in — for a per-unit crew. A sub asked for hours when he is paid by the square either guesses or ignores you.
A sub paid by the square is asked for hours, guesses, and the job cost is fiction.
People report accurately when you ask in the terms they think in. A sub paid by the square counts squares all day; asking for his own unit gets a real number back.
Sub submissions go through the same approvals and the same job costs
Their entries land waiting, clear through the same approvals screen your own crews go through, and price into the job's actual cost by that crew's model. Sub cost stops being a surprise that arrives at the end of the month with no way to check the days.
Sub cost arrives at the end of the month as one invoice with no way to check the days against the work.
The office approves one list, not two — and the job's margin is real because the sub's cost is in it. Their entries clear through the same approvals as your own crews and price into the job by that crew's pay model.
A contractor in your contacts becomes a tracked crew in one step
Try itSet up labour tracking on a Contractor contact and a subcontractor crew is created and linked to it — so the company you invoice and the crew that works the stages are the same record. Doing it twice returns the crew that already exists rather than creating a second one.
The company you pay and the crew on the schedule are two records, and nobody can match the invoice to the work.
One record for one company means the bill and the work line up without anyone matching them. Doing it twice returns the crew that already exists, so nobody creates a duplicate by trying again.
A subcontractor crew still signs before it starts
Try itYour own crews accept a job on their phones; a subcontractor crew signs. Put one on a job and its lead is emailed the acceptance contract — the brief, the phases, the dates and what the crew stands to earn — to sign with a typed name and a drawn signature, or decline with a reason. Everything still unsigned sits in one queue, with a resend on every row.
A sub starts on a verbal yes, walks off halfway through, and there is nothing in writing about what he agreed to.
The crews you have least hold over are the ones that most need to sign — and a sub who signed shows up. The paperwork is created by putting the sub on the job, so it can't be skipped on the rushed one.
- 1Mark the crew a subcontractor and copy its link off the crew card.
- 2The sub opens it and sees their assigned stages across every one of your jobs.
- 3The screen asks for whatever that crew is paid on — hours, or your own unit.
- 4They report hours or units, expenses and progress, with receipts.
- 5It all lands waiting for your approval, in the same inbox as your own crews.
Subcontractors will not create an account on a builder's system, and chasing their hours, units and receipts by text and email is exactly where a job's real labour cost goes missing. Each sub gets one durable link listing their assigned work across every one of that builder's jobs, and reports hours or units, expenses and progress from it with no login at all. A sub can only ever see and write against their own crew's work. Everything they file arrives waiting, for the builder to approve on his side.
- Subcontract labour invisible until the invoice arrives.
- Subs refusing to adopt builder software.
- Sub costs missing from job margin.
Subs log hours or units against a stage
Project, stage, date, amount, how many people were on site, and a note. The amount box says Hours or Units — using the crew's own word for it where you set one. Nothing submits until a stage and an amount are in.
Subs submit expenses with a photo of the receipt
Amount, a category — materials, fuel, tools, rental, permits, meals, other — an optional vendor, a receipt photo and a note. Their link decides which account it files against, so a sub can only ever file against their own crew.
