Topic hub

Subcontractor management

Subcontractor management is the work a general contractor does to select, contract, coordinate and pay the specialist firms delivering packages on its projects. Done well, it protects the margin on every package; done loosely, it is where project budgets quietly leak.

This hub is written for general contractors and the commercial teams behind them. It collects every Archdesk guide on choosing and contracting subcontractors, the comparisons of bidding tools, and the product pages where Archdesk runs the process end to end, from bid leveling through work reports and payment.

If you are a subcontractor yourself, there is a separate page built for your side of the package, linked below.

The bid-to-payment checklist

Seven checks that decide whether a package protects its margin or leaks it. Every guide and product page below hangs off one of these steps.

Qualify before you invite
Check insurance, certifications, financial health and performance history before a firm gets an RFQ, not after its bid wins. A non-compliant subcontractor found at award costs the bid round; one found on site costs the package.
Send the RFQ from your own quantities
Build the bid package from the takeoff you priced, so every quote comes back against identical lines. Three bids in three formats cannot be leveled, only guessed at.
Level on scope, not on the bottom line
Compare bids line by line for exclusions, rate outliers and missing items while there is still time to ask the question. The cheapest number usually carries the most expensive gaps.
Contract what was quoted
Generate the subcontract from the winning bid, so scope, rates and exclusions carry into the agreement without re-keying. Every retyped line is a future dispute.
Commit the package against the budget
Record the award as committed cost on its budget line the day it is signed, so the cost position runs ahead of the invoices instead of being reconstructed from them.
Approve the work before the money
Certify work reports and pay applications against the package, so payment follows work actually done and variations are priced when they happen, not argued at the final account.
Keep the paper trail with the package
Hold the bid record, subcontract, certified pay applications and payment history on one record per package, so the answer to any commercial question is a lookup, not an investigation.