Subcontractor tracking software is bought after the day a sub's insurance certificate turned out to have expired in March and nobody knew until the claim in June. Tracking a sub is tracking three kinds of thing: documents with expiry dates, money against a contract, and the waivers that release the money. A spreadsheet holds the first and a ledger the second; the waivers fall between them and get lost. This page sets out what the software has to track for one sub, worked on the $90,000 framing subcontract used across this site, and the two tests to run in a demo. The subcontractor management software guide on this site covers the choice of tool; DrawScheduleWorks Pro keeps the record described here.
Documents with dates: the certificate, the W-9 and the license
For each sub the record holds the certificate of insurance with its general liability and workers' compensation limits and, above all, its expiry date; the W-9 with the taxpayer number the 1099-NEC will carry at year end; the contractor's license and its expiry where the state requires one; and any safety or prequalification paperwork the job demands. The software's job is not to store them but to know their dates and to say, before a sub is scheduled, that one has lapsed. On the worked sub the certificate expires mid-job, and the test is whether the software says so a month before rather than never. The IRS pages linked below are why the W-9 and the 1099-NEC belong in the same record as the contract.
Money against the contract: sum, draws, retainage, balance
The sub's contract sum, its schedule of values, each draw the sub submits with the share complete per line, the retainage held from each, the amount paid, and the balance to finish. On the $90,000 framing sub at 57.5 complete on the example, the draw is $14,175 for the period with a tenth held, and the balance to finish is the sum less everything billed. Tracking software that keeps the sum and the payments but not the schedule of values cannot check a draw against the work, so the second test in a demo is to enter a sub's draw and see whether the software refuses a line billed past its value. The construction project billing software guide on this site works the general contractor's side of the same arithmetic.
The waivers: one per draw, conditional then unconditional
Every draw the sub is paid on should produce a lien waiver, conditional on payment when the draw is submitted and unconditional once the check clears, and a sub's lower-tier suppliers may owe their own. The software tracks which waivers are in for which draw, because a missing waiver on draw three is discovered when the owner's title company asks at closing. The federal payment clause linked below shows the same logic on public work, where the prime certifies that subs have been paid before the next progress payment; on private work the waiver is the certification. A record that ties each waiver to its draw is the difference between tracking and filing.
What the general contractor reads, and what the sub sees
For the GC the screen for one sub is the documents with their dates, the contract and its draws, the waivers per draw, and a flag on anything lapsed or missing. For the sub, sending a draw against their own schedule of values and seeing what was paid and what is held is the part of tracking they benefit from, and software that gives the sub that view gets cleaner draws. DrawScheduleWorks Pro keeps the sub's contract, schedule of values, draws, retainage and documents as one record and bills the GC's own draw from the same lines, so the sub's line on the owner's pay application is the sub's draw.
Questions people ask about subcontractor tracking software
What should subcontractor tracking software track?
Per sub: the insurance certificate and its expiry, the W-9, the license and its expiry, the contract sum and schedule of values, each draw with retainage held, the balance to finish, and a lien waiver per draw. Documents with dates, money against a contract, and the waivers that release it.
How does tracking software handle an expired certificate?
It knows the date and says so before the sub is scheduled, not after a claim. The demo test is to enter a certificate that expires mid-job and see whether the software raises it a month ahead.
Should the software check the sub's draw against the work?
Yes. A draw is checked line by line against the sub's schedule of values, and a line billed past its value is refused. Software that keeps payments without the schedule of values cannot do this.