Scheduling subcontractors alongside your own crew (without the chaos)

By the SKEDS Team · 4 September 2026 · 5 min read

Subcontractors are how small trade businesses flex: extra hands for the big job, a specialist for the work you don't self-perform, cover for the busy season. But subbies also break every informal system you have. Your employees absorb plans at smoko; a subbie only knows what you actually sent them. The moment "the schedule" is a whiteboard plus a group chat plus what you told Dave on the phone, subcontractor coordination becomes your second job.

The fix is treating subbies as first-class citizens of one schedule.

One board, everyone on it

If subcontractors live outside your scheduling system, every plan exists twice — once in the system, once in text threads — and they drift. In SKEDS, subbies go on the same schedule board as employees: same jobs, same visibility, same drag-and-drop when things move. The office sees the whole week's labour — internal and external — in one view, which is the only way clashes and gaps get caught before they cost a day. (The dispatch fundamentals in Dispatch scheduling 101 apply doubly here.)

The job pack: everything they need, nothing they have to chase

The most expensive subbie hours are the ones spent standing on site ringing you for information. Every job assigned in SKEDS carries its full pack on their phone: address and site contact, scope and notes, drawings and documents, photos from the site visit, access details, and the safety paperwork the site requires. A subcontractor who arrives fully briefed at 7am is the difference between buying a productive day and buying an expensive question-and-answer session.

Handoffs and evidence

Sub work usually slots between your own trades — your rough-in, their lining, your fit-off. The handoff points are where delays and disputes breed, so document them: photos at each stage (before it gets covered up), status updates as stages complete, and variations approved in writing on the job. When the subbie's invoice arrives, you're matching it against a recorded scope and recorded progress instead of memory.

Compliance sits on the record, not in a drawer

Subcontractors on your sites mean paperwork you're accountable for: insurance certificates, licences, and site-specific safety inductions or SWMS. Store them where the work is — against the contractor and the job in SKEDS — with expiry dates recorded, so "is Dave's liability cover current?" is a lookup, not an awkward mid-project discovery.

Employee or subbie: keep the line clean

Scheduling subbies alongside staff is normal; treating them identically in every other way can create legal grey areas around employment status. Subbies invoice you, carry their own insurance, and control how they work. If you're weighing which way to grow, our guide to your first hire: employee or subcontractor? walks the trade-offs.

Frequently asked questions

Does a subcontractor need a full software licence? In SKEDS a subbie can be scheduled like any crew member, with access to their jobs on the iOS/Android app — you control what they see, and per-user pricing keeps casual users cheap.

Can subbies see my other customers and pricing? No — they see their assigned jobs and what those jobs need, not your pipeline or your margins.

How do subbie hours feed job costing? Their time or their invoiced amount lands against the job like any other cost, so job costing reflects the true all-in labour picture.