Subcontractor docs,
by company and job

Subcontractor paperwork is two different things mixed together. Some of it describes the company and stays true on every job: insurance, license, W-9, safety record. The rest describes one piece of work: the subcontract, change orders, invoices and lien waivers.

File them separately. One folder per subcontractor for the first kind, and a subfolder per sub inside each job folder for the second. Many contractors also ask for a lien waiver, conditional and then unconditional, with every pay application, and keep the W-9 in the company file. Confirm those habits against your own contract and your counsel.

Start with the date, then the document type, and add the job name when the file belongs to one. For credentials, use the issue date: it separates this year’s certificate from last year’s, which matters when two versions sit side by side. Some teams lead with the expiry date instead, so the next lapse sorts first. Both work, so pick one and keep it.

Keep the sub’s name out of the file name when the file already sits in their folder. It keeps names short and easy to scan.

A change order changes one job’s price or scope, so it lives in that job’s folder beside the subcontract it amends. A lien waiver releases claims for one payment on one job, so it sits next to the invoice or pay application it covers. Neither belongs in the company folder.

When a sub sends a new insurance certificate, move the old one into an “Expired” subfolder instead of deleting it. For reminders before a certificate ends, see our guide to tracking certificates of insurance; this page stays on where each paper is filed.

A common setup is a prequalification checklist in a spreadsheet, one row per sub, with the project manager dragging whatever arrives by email into a shared drive folder. Estimators and accounting often keep their own copies, so the same W-9 ends up in three places.

Subcontractor management tools can track what each sub has sent, but the files themselves still arrive named “docs” and land where the sub left them. Filex handles that part: you describe the filing rule in plain words, and it reads each document, names it and files it under the company or the job.

It files and names documents. It does not decide whether a certificate or lien waiver meets your contract’s requirements, give legal or insurance advice, or contact a sub to ask for a missing paper. It also needs the company name to be readable, so a blurry photo may need a quick look from you.

It files documents from the day you turn it on. Sorting an older backlog of sub paperwork is a separate job.