Most Subbie Problems Are Scope Problems Wearing a Disguise

The plumber does not turn up. The sparks second-fixes a room the plasterer has not finished. The groundworker's invoice is for two more days than you had in the price. Three different problems on the face of it. Underneath, usually one: nobody wrote down precisely enough what was ordered, so there is nothing to check the work against.

The works order is the whole job

A works order that says "first fix electrics, plot 3" is not an order. It is a hope. It cannot be priced properly, it cannot be programmed properly, and when the invoice comes in there is nothing to hold it against.

What makes an order checkable:

• The measured works, described the way your own scope describes them, with quantities
• The rate and the basis, measured against the quantities, a day rate against recorded days, or a lump sum against a defined scope. Say which. Mixing them is where the argument starts.
• What is excluded, in writing. Making good, waste removal, welfare, scaffold, power, attendance. Every one of these has been argued about on somebody's job this week.
• Dates, when access is available and when the works are needed by, which are two different dates
• Who instructs variations, by name. If your site manager can instruct extras, say so. If they cannot, say that instead, and tell the subbie.

The exclusions list is the part everyone skips and the part that pays for itself. A subbie who reads "does not include making good" has priced accordingly, and you have not bought an argument about who fills the chases.

Back-to-back, or know why not

If your payment terms with the client and your payment terms with the subbie are not aligned, you are financing the gap out of your own account. That is a decision, and it can be the right one for a subbie you want to keep. It should be a decision you made rather than one you discovered.

The same applies to the rest of it: if the main contract carries a defects period and a retention, and the subcontract carries neither, you are holding both risks on your own. Read the two documents next to each other once, at the start, rather than at the final account.

Onboarding, once, properly

The same checks, every subbie, before the first works order rather than after the first problem:

• CIS verification with HMRC, so you deduct at the right rate rather than the safe one
• Public liability and employers' liability cover. The certificate, with the expiry date noted somewhere that will remind you
• Cards and competencies for the trade and the site
• RAMS for their works, reviewed rather than filed
• A signed subcontract, not a text message

Storing these digitally is not admin for its own sake. It is the difference between five minutes and half a day when a client, a principal contractor or an insurer asks you to produce them.

No-shows: the honest version

Most no-shows are not contempt. They are a subbie who was double-booked, or who was told a date three weeks ago and never told it had moved, or who turned up last time to find the previous trade had not finished and lost a day for nothing. Fix those three and the problem gets much smaller.

1. Confirm the date again when the preceding trade finishes, not just when the programme was drawn. The second confirmation is the one that means something.
2. Tell them when the date moves, the day it moves. A subbie who learns on the morning has lost a day's work and will remember it.
3. Do not send them into a room that is not ready. One wasted trip costs you more goodwill than a late payment.
4. Keep a second name for every critical trade. Not to punish anybody, because sometimes the first name is genuinely ill.

What BuiltUp does here

Subcontract paperwork is generated from the project, parties, scope items, rates, payment terms, dates, issued as a link, signed in the browser, and timestamped. Contracts sitting unsigned can be nudged automatically. When the programme moves, the subbies affected by the change are notified rather than the whole list, and each one sees their own tasks rather than the whole job.

None of that manages anybody. It removes the excuse that the information never arrived, which is the excuse that is usually true.

The short version

Write the order so it can be checked. Say what is excluded. Align the terms or know why you have not. Do the compliance checks before the first order rather than after the first problem. Tell people when things move. That is the job, and it is mostly done at a desk before anybody arrives on site.