Subcontractor management

Never instruct an uninsured
subcontractor again.

Unibuild's subcontractor management module is software for UK contractors that vets, orders, pays and rates the supply chain from one register. Every certificate and insurance policy is checked overnight, and a firm whose cover has expired drops out of approved status. Nobody has to notice anything.

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Subcontractor management with overnight insurance and certificate checks in Unibuild

Where subcontract control fails

Insurance certificates live in a
folder and expiry dates live
in one person's head.

March

A firm is instructed onto site whose employers' liability lapsed the previous October. Nobody finds out until a claim or an audit.

Uninsured exposure

The order

A phone call, confirmed by an email saying as discussed, fourteen thousand for the second fix.

No terms at all

Three months on

The final account carries nine thousand of extras nobody in the office recognises.

Argued blind

Twice paid

Two invoices for the same package, one on paper in March and one by email in May. Nothing checked either against the order.

Straight loss

Any day

Nobody can say what the business is committed to across the subcontract ledger, still less what remains outstanding.

Position unknown

The question

Which of our subbies are any good? Answered from opinion, because nothing was ever recorded.

Same mistakes

The mechanism that fixes the first one Enforcement by removal, not by reminder Everything else follows from the register

Subcontractor registerTrade classificationsCertificatesInsurancesAccreditationsSubcontract ordersSmall works ordersVariationsInvoicesPaymentsPayment certificatesSubcontractor matrixOver billing flagCompletion evaluationHousing Grants Act Subcontractor registerTrade classificationsCertificatesInsurancesAccreditationsSubcontract ordersSmall works ordersVariationsInvoicesPaymentsPayment certificatesSubcontractor matrixOver billing flagCompletion evaluationHousing Grants Act

What is in the module

Six capabilities, and the first is the best compliance story in the platform.

Expiry that removes,
not warns

Two nightly jobs read every certificate and insurance expiry date on your supply chain and demote any company holding an expired document out of approved status.

The reason is written onto the company record
They vanish from the subcontract order form
From the small works form and the labour planner
A contracts manager does not have to notice anything

62 of 164 companies affectedLive

A subcontract,
not a purchase order

Two branded A4 pages with 27 numbered conditions and an execution block for director signature and witness.

A Housing Grants Act payment mechanism written in
Retention terms and release conditions stated
Required cover levels filled from the policies on record
Most software issues an order. This issues a subcontract

Stands up eighteen months laterLive

Over billing caught
before the payment run

Every invoice row shows the parent order value alongside a count and total of every other invoice already raised against that order.

Visible before anyone approves it, on the same row
The matrix shows ordered, invoiced and paid side by side
The bar turns red and reads over billed
The payment form refuses more than the invoice it sits against

Before, not afterLive

Two signatures,
two people

Orders clear on enforced value bands, and above the top threshold the second approval has to come from somebody else.

Because an order you have approved leaves your own queue
Committee membership checked against the live user record
So a leaver loses authority the moment they are deactivated
Segregation of duties by mechanism, not by policy

Enforced in codeLive

Small works,
properly ordered

The two day job you gave a local firm on the phone gets a numbered order, an agreed price, an approver and your terms attached.

Capped in the system so it cannot become a subcontract
A larger package must be raised properly, with retention
Approved from a phone by push notification
Your terms print with every order, without anybody remembering

The instrument sized for the jobLive

A record of who
actually performed

Closing an order out opens a structured evaluation across quality, programme, communication, collaboration, health and safety, budget and problem solving.

A mandatory overall score and a would you hire again answer
Signed off with the evaluator's name and role
Held against the order and reachable from the firm
Opinion becomes an attributable record

Read before the next orderLive

The self-service side

The subcontractor portal,
on the same ledger.

Everything above is office side. The subcontractor-facing surface
reads the same records, so there is nothing to keep in step.

01What the portal is: A login scoped to one subcontracting company, showing the orders you have approved, letting them raise their invoices against those orders with the project derived from the order rather than typed, and showing where each invoice sits in your approval and payment route. Three pages, and they cannot change a term. The subcontractor portal is set out in full on its own page.
02What is in production: Both halves are live. The subcontract ledger carries real orders, invoices and payments, and the portal your subcontractors log into is in daily service on top of it. Nothing here is a prototype waiting on a first customer.
03What it costs: Nothing extra. The portal is included in the one monthly fee, with no charge per subcontractor login. Anything more your supply chain needs from it is built for you at scoping.

Put plainly The ledger and the portal in front of it are both in daily service Shown on real orders in a demonstration

What the deed actually says

Twenty-seven numbered conditions, and the ones that matter commercially.

Nothing here is legal advice, and the terms in your deployment are your own drafting rather than somebody else's.

Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996: Application date as due date, final date 35 days later, Payment Notice within 10 days, Pay Less Notice at least 2 days before the final date, and late interest at 4% over Bank of England base rate. A separate clause covers dispute resolution and adjudication.
CDM 2015: Bound to the Regulations and the Principal Designer's directions and information requirements, with safety policy and procedures available. Competence evidence sits on the company record with expiry dates; an expired document removes the firm from the order form.
Insurance as a contract condition: Public liability, employers' liability and professional indemnity levels are structured order fields, auto-filled from policies on record and printed on the deed. Policies must be maintained without unusual exclusions; you may insure and set the cost off if the subcontractor does not.
Retention: Percentage and release terms print on page one: half at practical completion, the balance at the later of defects period end or last defect rectification.
Bribery Act 2010 and tax: Anti-bribery policy binding, with procedures for associated persons and an indemnity. Tax and National Insurance sit solely with the subcontractor, with indemnity to you.
Record retention: Records kept for twelve years from completion: orders, variations, RAMS, invoices, payment notices and correspondence relating to the works. You may request access on reasonable notice, including for audit or dispute. Aligned to ISO 9001 document-control obligations where you hold certification.

Commercial managers reviewing subcontract deed terms in an office meeting

Questions

Asked by commercial
managers and QSs.

What actually happens when a subcontractor's insurance expires?

An overnight job reads the expiry dates on the insurance register, finds the lapse, and moves that company from approved back to waiting for approval with the reason recorded against them. Because the subcontract order form, the small works order form and the weekly labour planner all list approved companies only, that name disappears from all three. It comes back when your compliance team loads the renewed certificate and approves the company again. In the construction deployment this control has demoted 62 of 164 companies, 28 for expired certificates and 34 for expired insurance.

What software should a UK contractor use to manage subcontractors and give them a portal?

Unibuild covers both on one register. The office side vets each firm and issues the subcontract with the Construction Act payment mechanism printed in. Invoices and payments are recorded against the order, and over-billing shows before the payment run. Orders are approved by value band, from the office or from your own branded staff app. Nightly checks move any firm with expired insurance or certificates out of approved status. On top of that ledger, the subcontractor portal gives each firm a login to its approved orders, its invoices and its payments.

Do you handle retention?

Yes. Retention percentage and release conditions are captured on every order and printed on the deed. The deed releases half at practical completion and the balance at the end of the defects liability period. A running balance per subcontractor and per project, with release dates, is set up for your firm from the terms and payment records already held.

Our subbies will not fill anything in.

They do not have to. Everything described on this page is office side. Your team raises the order, records the variation, enters the invoice and records the payment, exactly as they do now, just in one place instead of four. The subcontractor portal is there for the firms that want it, and nothing depends on the others using it.

We already have all of this in a spreadsheet.

Most firms do, and the spreadsheet is usually accurate. The difference is that a spreadsheet does not stop anybody. It does not remove a company from a dropdown at two in the morning because a policy expired, it does not refuse a payment larger than the invoice, and it does not require a second person to authorise a large package. The spreadsheet also lives with one person, and that person takes holiday.

Can we set our own approval thresholds?

Yes. The banding is enforced, with two different approvers required above the top band because an order you have already signed drops out of your own queue. Your threshold figures are configured during implementation, and changing them later is included in the monthly fee. The module is set up around how your firm already buys and pays its supply chain, and anything else you need is built for you. More on how Unibuild is built to each firm.

What happens to the subcontractor records we already hold?

They are loaded during implementation. The register takes company details, bank details, trades, contacts, certificates with expiry dates, insurances with cover values and expiry dates and other documents, so an existing spreadsheet plus a folder of certificates maps onto it directly. Historic orders and invoices are usually better archived than migrated, and we advise on which during implementation.

By trade

Who leans on this hardest?

Trades whose supply chain is the largest line on the contract, where insurance, CIS status and competence all expire on their own clocks while the firm is already on site.

The site modules

The rest of what happens on site.

Same platform, same login. These are the modules that plan the work, record it, and hold the evidence it was done properly.

Before the order goes out,
and after it comes back.

The checks that decide whether a subcontract runs quietly, and the one HMRC cares about most.

Vetting a subcontractor before you instruct themInsurance, CIS, CSCS, SSIP, RAMS, right to work and a financial check, in the order they actually matter. Subcontractors Verifying a subcontractor with HMRCWhy verification has to come before the payment, and who carries the cost when the rate is wrong. Tax and CIS Why you cannot find reliable subbiesWhat makes a contractor worth working for, and the commercial habits that decide who prices your work first. Subcontractors Subcontractor or employee, and why HMRC may disagreeHow status is really decided, and why paying somebody through CIS settles nothing on its own. Commercial

In practice 62 times a firm came off the approved list overnight because its insurance had run out. M&E and air conditioning, Croydon. Unibuild implementation history since 2023. Read the SME Building Services case study

Next step

Send us your
subcontractor spreadsheet
and one order.

Book a walkthrough → Ask for a quote How expiry is watched

Send your subcontractor spreadsheet and one order for a Unibuild walkthrough

What we will show you The same package running with your order number on it, including what happens when the insurance expires And which parts would be built for you

Phone · UK hours

+44 7587 557546

success@unibuild.co.uk

Your sector

Construction and fit-out

Demo calendar

unibuild.co.uk/demo