Note
What to Tell Your Subcontractor Before They Start
The documentation gap rarely appears when the subcontractor’s crew is still on site. It appears four weeks later, when you are assembling the handover package and realise there are no before-close-up photos of the buried conduit, no earth resistance records for the bonding runs, and no signed completion checklist for the mounting structure. The civil sub finished on time, the roofing contractor did clean work, but nobody asked them to document it.
That absence is not usually the sub’s bad faith. It is the result of a brief that told them what to build and when to finish, but said nothing about what to produce as evidence.
What Is a Subcontractor Brief, and Why Does Documentation Need to Be in It?
A subcontractor brief is the instruction set a sub receives before their crew arrives on site. Most briefs cover scope and schedule well. The parts that are usually missing: a specific list of documents the sub must produce, the format and timing for submitting them, and the payment consequence for not delivering.
On a C&I solar or factory LED project, your technicians are not the only ones who can make a documentation gap. The civil contractor who trenches the cable route, the structural contractor who builds the roof mount, the scaffolding crew who supports the high-bay LED install: each scope leaves behind records you will need later, and none of them will produce those records without being told to.
The brief is the point at which you make this explicit.
What Belongs in the Brief Before Day One?
Scope in writing, at the job order level. Not “install cable tray and run circuits” but the specific zones, panel references, cable specifications, and conduit routes. This is the reference against which as-built records get checked.
A named list of documentation items. For a factory electrical installation, this typically includes:
- Photos before concealing any conduit, cable route, or trench (labeled by zone and panel reference)
- Photos of completed work at each main connection or panel
- Earth resistance and bonding test records
- A signed completion checklist from the sub’s site supervisor, one per zone
- A list of any material substitutions, with the reason and equivalent specification
The list changes with the scope. A civil sub trenching cable routes needs before-and-after photos of each section plus a sketch of the route. A sub installing solar mounting structures needs torque verification records and alignment photos. Write the list for the actual scope, not a generic template carried over from a previous job.
Who receives the documentation, and when. Name the person on your team who receives the sub’s submissions. Set a deadline: by end of each working day, or within 24 hours of completing a zone. Documentation submitted two weeks after the fact is typically incomplete because the sub’s site supervisor is working from memory by then.
The acceptance process. Tell the sub that your project manager will review submissions within two working days. Missing or insufficient items come back to the sub before the zone is marked closed on your board. This is the same quality gate your own technicians work to.
Why Payment Timing Is the Most Effective Lever
A sub who has been paid in full has no financial reason to return calls about missing records. A sub with an outstanding payment held pending documentation acceptance has a clear reason to complete the package.
The standard arrangement is to hold a meaningful portion of the sub’s invoice until your project manager accepts the documentation. The amount held needs to be real enough to create a genuine incentive, not a token percentage.
This clause needs to appear in the subcontract agreement before work starts, not as a surprise after the job is done. If you work with repeat subs, having this in your standard subcontract terms makes it routine rather than a negotiation each time.
What Gets Lost When Work Is Concealed Without Records
Factory electrical work often involves conditions that cannot be revisited once closed: conduit embedded in concrete walls, cable routes under raised floors, underground cable trenches. Once those are sealed, the documentation is the only reliable record of what is there and how it was installed.
A missing photo of a buried conduit run is not a problem until it is: a fault trace two years later, a maintenance contractor who cannot find where the circuit goes, or a factory expansion that needs to know the underground run’s path before breaking ground. At that point, someone drives back. If the original sub is gone, the options become more expensive.
The phrase “take photos before you close up” needs to appear in the brief as a required step, assigned to a named person, with a deadline. It is not a suggestion and it is not something that should depend on the sub’s own initiative.
Handling Documentation Gaps During the Job
Even with a clear brief, gaps happen. A site supervisor gets pulled to another project, the crew rushes the last zone before a long weekend, and the photos for one section are missing.
When you find this during the job, resolve it while the sub still has crew on site. A direct message to the sub’s supervisor: “Zone C photos are missing from yesterday, can you walk it before the crew leaves today?” is a five-minute fix. Found after the crew has demobilised, it is a half-day call-back, if the sub will agree to it at all.
Test records that are missing can sometimes be reconstructed with a site visit and a meter. Photos of concealed work cannot. That is the reason the photo requirement is a before-close-up step, not an end-of-project step.
FAQ
What If the Sub Says Documentation Was Not in Their Quote?
If your subcontract agreement does not mention documentation requirements, this objection has some validity. The resolution is to add a documentation clause to your standard terms before the next engagement. For the current job: the documentation lets you close out and invoice. The sub wants to be paid and not recalled. Both interests are served by completing the package.
What Is the Minimum Acceptable Documentation for a Sub Scope?
At minimum: photos at each main connection point, a signed completion note from the sub’s supervisor, and any test records required by the applicable standard for the work type. Do not accept a completion declaration without supporting evidence for tested items. The declaration is the summary, not the evidence.
Do These Requirements Apply to Small Sub Scopes?
Yes, proportionally. A sub doing a single-day task needs a photo of the completed installation and a note confirming the mount and connections were checked. The brief is shorter but the principle holds: a job order is not closed without documentation attached.
If the subcontractors on your current jobs have not been briefed on documentation requirements, the gap will surface at handover. The TRACE 30 program applies the same job order structure to sub scopes as to your own crew’s work: the job does not close until the required documentation is attached. Details at /program/ or book a short call at /schedule-a-call/.