Ops & Supply

How to vet and onboard vendors as Construction and Contractor Founders

Ops & SupplyFor Construction and Contractor Founders2 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

You've got three subs bidding on the framing package and you can't remember if the one you used last spring ever sent back a signed sub agreement — or if their GL cert is still current. COIs live in a folder nobody organized, sub agreements get signed on paper and scanned to Dropbox, and your onboarding 'process' is texting a W-9 link and hoping they fill it out before the first day on site. When an insurance audit hits or a job goes sideways and you need to know whether that sub was properly vetted, you're digging through email threads from six months ago. Meanwhile you've got three new subs you want to bring on for the summer pipeline and no clean way to track where each one is in the process.

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Ops & SupplyFor Construction and Contractor Founders2 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A centralized sub and vendor registry that tracks insurance expiration dates, license status, signed agreements, and W-9 status — so you know at a glance who's cleared to work and who's got a lapsed COI

An automated onboarding checklist that moves each new sub through document collection, approval, and first-job readiness without you chasing every step manually

Expiration alerts for COIs and licenses so you catch the renewal 30 days out instead of the day a sub shows up on site

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Project Management Contract Lifecycle Management

Data sources & config

Starch connects directly to QuickBooks on a scheduled sync to pull existing vendor records and payment history. Field management tools like Buildertrend and CoConstruct are automated through your browser — no API needed — so Starch can read current job assignments and flag which subs are active on open projects. Google Drive or Dropbox document folders are reachable through Starch's integration catalog, queried live when the app needs to check whether a COI file has been uploaded. Gmail is connected on a scheduled sync so Starch can monitor inbound document emails from subs and update onboarding task status automatically.

Prompts to copy

Build me a vendor onboarding tracker with columns for company name, trade type, COI expiration date, license number and state, W-9 received yes/no, signed sub agreement yes/no, insurance carrier, and onboarding status (invited / docs pending / under review / approved / rejected). Alert me when any COI expiration date is within 30 days.

Create an onboarding project for each new sub with tasks for: send W-9 request, collect COI, verify license, send sub agreement for signature, confirm bank details for ACH, and mark approved. Assign due dates 3 business days apart so the whole process finishes in two weeks.

Contract Lifecycle Management — coming soon — will handle sub agreement drafting from a standard clause library, route for signature, and track executed copies against each vendor record.

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Connect QuickBooks on a scheduled sync — Starch pulls your existing vendor list, payment history, and 1099-eligible flags so you're not rebuilding your sub roster from scratch.

2 Tell Starch: 'Build me a vendor registry app with fields for trade type, COI expiration, license number, W-9 status, and signed agreement status — and flag any record with a COI expiring in the next 30 days in red.' Starch builds the app; you start populating it by importing your QuickBooks vendor records.

3 For each net-new sub you want to vet, create an onboarding project in Starch Project Management: tell Starch 'Create an onboarding checklist for Apex Framing LLC with tasks for W-9, COI, license verification, sub agreement, and ACH setup, each due 3 days apart.'

4 Connect Gmail on a scheduled sync so Starch monitors your inbox for inbound documents from subs — when Apex emails their COI back, the task updates automatically and you get a Slack notification.

5 Use browser automation to check your state contractor licensing board's public lookup — tell Starch 'Go to the Colorado DORA contractor lookup, search for Apex Framing LLC, and confirm their license is active and not expired.' Starch automates this through your browser, no API needed.

6 Once documents are in, Starch marks the sub as 'under review' — you do a 30-second check on the insurance limits against your standard minimums (which you've told Starch: $1M GL, $500k workers comp, $1M umbrella) and approve or flag for follow-up.

7 For sub agreements, use the Contract Lifecycle Management app — coming soon — to draft from your standard subcontract template, send for e-signature, and automatically log the executed copy back to the vendor record. Until it launches, Starch automates DocuSign or your current e-sign tool through the browser.

8 When a sub is fully onboarded, Starch updates their status to 'Approved' and they become available to assign to jobs — your Project Management view shows only approved subs in the assignment dropdown.

9 Starch runs a weekly automation: 'Every Monday, check all active vendor records for COI expirations within 60 days and send each sub a templated Gmail reminder from my account with instructions to send updated certs.' You review the draft list before it sends.

10 For subs you've used before but haven't worked with in 12+ months, Starch flags them in a 'dormant — re-verify' bucket so you don't assume old approvals are still current before putting them back on a job.

11 When an insurance audit or lien claim comes in and you need to prove a sub was properly vetted on a specific date, Starch surfaces the full audit trail: when each document was received, who approved it, and what the insurance limits showed at the time.

12 Quarterly, run: 'Show me all subs with at least one job in the last 6 months, their current COI status, and whether we have a signed sub agreement on file' — use this as your vendor health report before bid season kicks off.

See this running on Starch

Connect your tools, describe what you want, and the agent builds it. Closed beta is free.

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Worked example

Spring 2026 Sub Roster Audit — before summer pipeline opens

Sample numbers from a real run

Active subs reviewed	23
COIs expired or expiring within 30 days	7
Missing signed sub agreements	4
W-9s not on file	3
License verifications run via browser automation	11
New subs fully onboarded through checklist	5

You're heading into May with 4 projects scheduled to break ground in June and a framing sub, two MEP subs, and a concrete crew you haven't used since Q3 last year. Before you put any of them on a bid, you run the roster audit in Starch. Of your 23 active vendors, 7 come back with COIs expired or expiring before June 1 — including your main electrical sub who's on two of the upcoming jobs. Starch has already queued up Gmail reminders to all 7; the electrical sub responds within a day with updated certs and the task closes automatically. The 4 missing sub agreements are a bigger issue — two of those subs did work last year on time-and-material jobs where you never got around to a formal agreement. Starch drafts standard subcontract language for each (Contract Lifecycle Management is coming soon, but for now you use browser automation to push through DocuSign), and both sign within the week. For the concrete crew you haven't used since September, Starch runs a license lookup on the Colorado DORA site through browser automation and confirms their license renewed in January — they're cleared. The 5 new subs you're bringing on for the summer pipeline all move through the onboarding checklist in under 10 days. Going into June, your vendor registry shows 28 approved subs, zero expired COIs, and a full document trail — which matters when your GC client on the Riverside project asks for proof of sub vetting as part of their contract compliance checklist.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

% of active subs with current COI on file (target: 100% at all times)

Average days to complete sub onboarding from invite to approved status

Number of subs with expired or missing sub agreements on active jobs

COI renewals caught proactively (30+ days before expiration) vs. caught late

% of 1099 vendors with W-9 on file before first payment

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

Buildertrend / CoConstruct vendor module

Tracks subs in the context of projects but doesn't automate document collection, expiration alerts, or license verification — you're still chasing COIs manually.

Google Drive folder + spreadsheet tracker

Free and familiar, but there's no alerting, no automated onboarding workflow, and no audit trail — it only works if someone updates it religiously, which nobody does.

Procore subcontractor management

Handles this workflow well at the commercial scale it's built for, but the price point and configuration overhead don't make sense for a shop under 20 crew running residential or small commercial work.

DocuSign + manual COI tracking in Excel

Handles signatures and document storage but requires you to manually chase documents, set calendar reminders for expirations, and keep the spreadsheet current — all the work Starch automates.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — project management, contract lifecycle management all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Can Starch pull my existing vendor list out of QuickBooks so I don't start from scratch?

Yes. Starch syncs your QuickBooks vendor records on a schedule — company names, contact info, payment history, and 1099 flags all come over automatically. You tell Starch which fields map to your vendor registry and it populates the starting roster. You'll still need to manually add COI expiration dates and agreement status for existing subs, but that's a one-time import, not an ongoing job.

My field management software is Buildertrend and it doesn't have an API I can easily connect. Can Starch still read job and sub assignment data from it?

Yes. Starch automates Buildertrend through your browser — no API needed. You tell Starch what data you need (which subs are assigned to active jobs, for example) and it navigates Buildertrend just like you would, reads the data, and brings it back into your vendor registry. It's not as fast as a direct sync, but it works without any IT setup.

Can Starch automatically send W-9 requests and COI reminder emails on my behalf?

Yes, if you connect Gmail on a scheduled sync. You set the rules once — for example, 'send a COI reminder to any sub whose cert expires within 30 days' — and Starch queues the emails for your review before sending, or sends automatically if you prefer. The emails come from your Gmail account, not a generic Starch address.

Does Starch handle e-signatures for sub agreements?

The Contract Lifecycle Management app — which handles drafting, e-signature routing, and executed contract storage — is coming soon. Until it launches, Starch can automate your current e-sign tool (DocuSign, HelloSign, etc.) through browser automation to push a contract for signature and track completion. It's a workaround, not a native feature, but it works.

Is Starch SOC 2 certified? I'm sometimes required to tell GC clients what tools hold sub data.

Starch is not SOC 2 Type II certified today. If your GC clients require SOC 2 from vendors in your stack, that's worth knowing upfront. Most small trade and residential shops don't face that requirement, but it's an honest limit.

What happens if a sub's COI arrives as a PDF in email — does Starch actually read it or just file it?

Starch can read the attachment and extract key fields — carrier name, policy number, coverage limits, expiration date — and map them to the vendor record. You tell Starch what to look for ('flag any COI where GL coverage is under $1M') and it checks incoming documents against those rules automatically. It's not foolproof on unusual certificate formats, but it handles standard ACORD 25 forms reliably.