New: Track What You Owe Every Subcontractor

You always know what a client owes you. It is on the invoice, it is on the dashboard, and the reminder goes out on its own. What you owe the electrician who roughed in that kitchen last week lives somewhere else entirely: a text thread, a photo of his quote, and whatever you can remember about the change you agreed to on the phone.

Subcontractor tracking is live, and it answers one question: what do I still owe?

Add them once, add them to a job

There is a Subcontractors section in the sidebar now. Adding one takes a name. Everything else is optional and lives on their page: the person you actually call, their trade, their phone, their payment terms, their license number.

Then you put them on a job with what you agreed to pay them. That is a number you type, not one we work out for you. Record payments as you make them, and the balance follows: agreed, minus paid, equals owed. Overpay somebody and it reads as a credit instead of a negative you have to interpret.

One running balance per sub per job. If Mike is on three of your jobs, that is three balances, and his page rolls them up so you can see the whole relationship at once. The list opens on an Owed tab, because that is the question you came to answer.

What you agreed can grow

The number a sub quotes you at the handshake is rarely the number you pay him. He finds a rotted sill, you add scope, you agree on more money. So agreed work is a list rather than a single figure. Add the extra as its own row and the history of how the number got where it is stays visible, which is the same reason a change order exists on the client side.

Two numbers, on purpose

What you charge your client and what you pay your sub are kept completely separate, and that is a decision rather than an oversight.

Say you price a bathroom at $2,200 because that is what the job is worth in your market, and you did not enter a markup anywhere. Any system that derives what the sub is owed from your own line item would tell you he is owed $2,200 when he quoted you $1,500. The only way to fix that would be to rebuild the document you send a homeowner around what your sub charges, which is backwards. Your estimate is your agreement with the homeowner. His quote is your agreement with him. Two counterparties, two numbers.

There is a note you can set for your own reference, marking which estimate or invoice you marked a piece of work up on. It moves no money and nothing reads it into a total. It is there because a job can carry several invoices and "which one did I bill that on" is a fair question.

Your client never sees any of it

Nothing about a subcontractor reaches a client. Not the estimate, not the invoice, not the PDF, not the share link. Who you hired and what you pay them is your business, and there is no toggle to get that wrong.

The paperwork you keep meaning to keep

Their page holds their license number and the date their insurance certificate lapses. From 30 days out, that gets flagged wherever you see them: the subcontractors list, their own page, and the job they are working on. You can attach files to them too, which is where their quote, their invoice or a photo of a receipt should live instead of in your camera roll.

Archiving a sub is blocked while you still owe them money. Import and export both take a CSV, so a list you already keep in a spreadsheet comes over in one go.

What it deliberately does not do

It does not track materials or supplier receipts, and it will not tell you what you made on a job.

A run to the supply house is already paid at the counter, so there is no commitment and no balance to follow. That is a receipt capture feature with a camera and categories in it, and building it at the same time as this one would have meant shipping two half-features and calling it one. Job profit needs materials before it means anything, so it waits on the same thing. We would rather answer one question completely than four of them badly.

Subcontractor tracking is included at $29 a month, along with everything else in the app. The full walkthrough is in the docs.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Jobkore track what I owe a subcontractor?

You add the sub to a job with the amount you agreed to pay them, then record payments as you make them. The balance is agreed minus paid, kept per sub per job, and an overpayment reads as a credit. The number is one you type rather than one derived from your own estimate.

Can my client see which subcontractors I hired?

No. Nothing about a subcontractor reaches a client on an estimate, an invoice, a PDF or a share link. Who you hired and what you agreed to pay them stays on your side of the job, and there is no setting that changes it.

Does Jobkore track materials and job profit?

No, and that is deliberate. A supply house run is already paid at the counter, so there is no balance to follow, and job profit needs materials before it means anything. Subcontractor tracking answers one question completely: what you still owe.

Does Jobkore track subcontractor insurance and licenses?

Yes. A subcontractor page holds their license number, payment terms and the date their insurance certificate lapses. From 30 days out it is flagged on the subcontractors list, on their own page and on the job they are working. You can attach their quote, their invoice or a photo of a receipt to the same record.