Subcontractors

Subs answers one question: what do I still owe the people working for me? You add them to the job, say what you agreed to pay them, record payments as they go out, and Jobkore keeps the running balance.

#Adding a Sub to a Job

A subcontractor is added to the job, not to a line item. Open the project, find the Subcontractors card, and use Add Subcontractor: who, what work, and what you agreed to pay them. Pick an existing sub or create one on the spot — a name is all it needs.

There is nothing to tag on a document. No line item carries a subcontractor, no badge appears on one, and no estimate or invoice names anybody working for you. One line reading “Kitchen remodel” with three subs under it is recorded exactly the same way as three separate lines, because what you owe has nothing to do with how you chose to write the scope.

A sub carries one balance per job rather than a scatter of separate entries. Add more work for the same person on the same job and Jobkore says so — "Already on this job: $900 agreed, $400 owed. Anything you add here is on top of that." — and adds it to the running total.

#Linking Work to a Document

Each piece of agreed work can name the estimate or invoice it belongs to, under Document. It is a note for you and nothing else — it never changes what you owe, and it never puts the sub on that document. Leave it as Not linked if you do not need it.

Deleting the document later does not touch the commitment. What you agreed to pay somebody is a fact about the job, not about a row on a piece of paper.

#Agreed, Paid, Owed

Every sub carries three figures: Agreed (what you said you would pay), Paid (what has gone out), and Owed (the difference). The job shows the same three for all its subs together, and each sub's page breaks them down job by job.

Owed is signed. Pay a sub more than you agreed and it does not clamp at zero — it shows as Overpaid.

#The Subs List

Three tabs: Owed, Active, and Archived. Owed is the one you will live in — it filters to every sub with a non-zero balance, in either direction, and the count beside it is the real total rather than whatever fitted on the current page.

#The Sub Record

Creating a sub needs a name and nothing else. Everything below lives on their page and is optional — leave what you do not track blank and it will not show up.

• Trade — what they do. It's what tells two electricians apart when you're picking one for a job.
• Contact, Phone, Email — the person you actually call, tap-to-call and tap-to-email from their page.
• Payment Terms — what you normally pay them on. Net 15, net 30, on completion.
• License # — their license number, if you keep it on file.
• Insurance Expires — when their certificate lapses. Jobkore warns you as the date approaches and again once it has passed. It is a flag, not a block: nothing stops you giving work to a sub with lapsed paperwork, it just stops being a thing you find out afterwards. They are flagged wherever you see them — the list, their page, and the job they are on.
• Notes — anything worth remembering. Only you see this.

#Payments and Files

Record a payment from the sub's page with an amount, date, method, and reference. Payments can be deleted — that is for a figure entered by mistake, and deleting one does not undo anything at your bank.

You can also attach files to a sub: their quote, their invoice, a photo of a receipt.

#Changing and Removing Work

The agreed cost can be corrected wherever it is shown — if you shook hands on a different number, change it.

Remove on a piece of work clears what you agreed for it and leaves any payments already recorded alone. If payments exist against that subcontractor, Jobkore asks you to delete those first, so a tidy-up cannot erase the record of money that actually moved.

Taking the whole subcontractor off a job clears everything you agreed with them there, along with the files you kept for that job. Their record and their other jobs are untouched.

#Archiving and Deleting

A sub with no work and no payments on record is deleted outright — there is nothing to lose, and a sub added by a typo needs a way out. That works from the Archived tab too.

Any sub with history is archived instead. They drop out of your list and out of the picker; their record and payment history stay.

Archiving is blocked while the balance is non-zero — in either direction. You cannot file away someone you still owe, and you cannot file away someone who owes you a credit either. Settle it or correct the figure first.

#Your Subs Are Private

None of this reaches your client. The sub's name, trade, agreed amount, license number, insurance date and your notes are contractor-private by construction — nothing on an estimate, an invoice, a PDF or a share link names a subcontractor at all. It is not a setting you can get wrong; there is no field to send.

Your client sees the line item and its price. Who is doing the work, and what you are paying them, lives on the job and stays yours.

#Hank, Import and Export

Hank does not touch Subs. He builds and edits the document your client sees; what you owe somebody working for you is recorded on the job, by you. Ask him for a line item for the electrical and you get one, priced for your client, with no subcontractor attached to it.

Subs import and export as CSV, with columns for name, contact name, trade, email, phone, payment terms, license #, insurance expiry and notes. The importer is the same one clients and catalog items use, so you get the column-mapping step and duplicate skipping.

And at tax time, Sub Payment Totals in Reports gives you one row per sub with the total you paid them across whatever range you select.