Keep Subcontractor Documents Straight Across Every Job
ABC Plumbing is on four of your jobs. They have one insurance certificate, one licence, four contracts and a lien waiver for every draw — and the certificate is currently filed in whichever job needed it most recently.
The short answer
Subcontractor paperwork splits into two kinds and they belong in different places. Documents about the company — insurance certificates, licences, W-9s, master agreements — belong to the subcontractor and are the same across every job, so filing them under a job means four copies that go out of date separately. Documents about the work — contracts, change orders, lien waivers, invoices — belong to the job. A workflow uses the Read Details from File step to tell which is which, then the Move step files company documents under the subcontractor and job documents under the project.
Steps this uses
Before and after
What actually changes
As they arrive
- ABC cert.pdf
- waiver signed.pdf
- contract executed.pdf
- license.pdf
After the workflow
- Subcontractors/ABC Plumbing/2027-04-30-certificate-of-insurance.pdf
- Oak Street/Plumbing/2026-08-31-lien-waiver-draw-04-abc.pdf
- Oak Street/Plumbing/2026-03-12-subcontract-executed-abc.pdf
- Subcontractors/ABC Plumbing/2028-01-31-license-master-plumber.pdf
Four documents from one subcontractor, split between what belongs to the company and what belongs to the job.
Setting it up
Described once, then it runs
This is the sentence. Send it to the builder and the steps below appear on a canvas, wired and named, for you to change before anything runs.
When a subcontractor document arrives, work out whether it belongs to the company or to a job: file certificates, licences and W-9s under the subcontractor, and contracts, change orders, lien waivers and invoices under the project.
Two homes, not one
A folder per subcontractor for company documents, and the usual project folders for job documents. The split is the whole idea: one insurance certificate in one place, referenced by every job, rather than four copies expiring on four different schedules.
Let the document decide
The Read Details from File step identifies the document type. A certificate of insurance goes to the sub; a lien waiver naming a project and a draw goes to the job. Both name the subcontractor, which is what connects them.
Put expiry dates in filenames
For insurance certificates and licences, the Rename step writes the expiry date into the name, so the subcontractor folder is readable from the list view without opening anything.
Check compliance on a schedule
The On a Schedule trigger runs weekly, the Ask AI About the File step finds expired certificates, and Send a Message reports which subs are out of compliance — before an inspector or an owner asks.
Why one certificate in four folders goes wrong
It does not go wrong immediately. It goes wrong at renewal, when the new certificate replaces the copy in the job somebody was working on and the other three stay as they were. Six months later three jobs show a certificate that expired, and nobody can tell whether that is a filing artefact or a real lapse. Keeping the company document in one place means there is only one thing to renew and only one answer to the question.
Lien waivers belong to the draw
A lien waiver is specific to a job, a draw and an amount — the same subcontractor signs a different one every month on every job. Naming it with the project, the draw number and the date is what makes a missing one visible, because the gap in the sequence shows. Filing waivers under the subcontractor instead buries that sequence inside a folder that is mostly about something else.
What it cannot tell you
It reads the documents you hold. A subcontractor who has never sent a certificate produces no document to read, so that gap has to come from your own list of who is on the job. It also reads what a certificate says rather than confirming coverage is in force — that is a call to the carrier, not a document-reading problem.
FAQ
Common questions
How should subcontractor documents be organized?
Split them. Documents about the company — insurance certificates, licences, W-9s, master agreements — go in one folder per subcontractor, because they are the same across every job. Documents about the work — subcontracts, change orders, lien waivers, invoices — go under the project they belong to. Filing a certificate under a job creates a copy per job that expires separately.
How do you track subcontractor insurance expiry?
Write the expiry date into the filename when the certificate is filed, so the subcontractor folder is readable at a glance, then check the folder on a schedule for certificates running out in the next thirty days. Reading the date off the certificate rather than re-keying it into a spreadsheet is what keeps the tracker from drifting.
Where do lien waivers go?
Under the project, named with the draw number and the date. Waivers are specific to a job and a payment, and one subcontractor signs a different one every draw on every job. Naming them by draw makes a missing waiver visible as a gap in the sequence.
Will it chase subcontractors for expired certificates?
It reports which certificates have expired or are close to it, to you, through the Send a Message step. It does not email the subcontractor on your behalf — the request stays a decision somebody makes, because whether to chase a sub mid-job is rarely just an administrative question.
One certificate, one place.
Company documents under the sub, job documents under the job.
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