Almost every main contractor tracks subcontractor compliance in a spreadsheet, with the certificates themselves in an email folder or a shared drive. It is worth saying plainly that this is a sensible thing to have done. It costs nothing, everybody can read it, and it works.
It also has one structural property that no amount of tidying fixes: a spreadsheet is correct on the day someone updates it, and silent on every other day.
What that actually costs
- Chasing. Someone has to notice a certificate is expiring, find the right contact, email them, and email them again. This is the largest cost and the least visible one, because it never appears as a task — it appears as somebody's afternoon.
- Currency. Between updates, the register is a claim about the past. The gap is invisible, which is what makes it a risk rather than a nuisance.
- Proof. When a client or an auditor asks who approved a subcontractor and what cover they held at the time, the spreadsheet holds today's answer. Last March's answer is in an inbox, if it is anywhere.
- Concentration. The person who knows how it works is the register. When they are on holiday, so is it.
The fix is not a better spreadsheet
Conditional formatting on the expiry column makes the sheet easier to read. It does not make it chase anybody, and chasing is where the time goes.
SubbyFlow moves two jobs off people. The subcontractor uploads their own documents through a link chosen by trade, so the data entry is not yours. Expiry is tracked and renewals are chased automatically, so the noticing is not yours either. What is left — deciding your standards, and deciding who is good to work — is the part that should be a person's judgement.
| What you need | Spreadsheet and inbox | SubbyFlow |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to set up | Yes | Set up with you |
| Who does the data entry | You | The subcontractor |
| Chasing renewals | No | Yes |
| Accurate between updates | No | Yes |
| Who approved whom, and when | In an inbox | Yes |
| Works when the person who owns it is away | No | Yes |
The objection that actually matters
It is not cost and it is not migration. It is that your subcontractors will never fill it in.
That objection has killed more of these systems than any other, and it is usually right — because most of them ask a busy tradesperson to create an account, remember a password, and work out which of eleven documents applies to them. There is no account here and nothing to install. You pick the trade, and that choice decides what they are asked for. They open a link and upload photographs of the documents they already have on their phone.
Subcontractors you already use go through the same way and join the register with everyone else, so there is no separate migration to plan.
SubbyFlow is not open to everyone yet. Join the waitlist and we will be in touch when there is a place.