Document collection for general contractors

The documents general contractors collect

What a GC needs from a subcontractor before work starts, and before payment goes out, is a fixed list, but it has to be collected from every sub, on every job, every time:

• Certificates of insurance, general liability and workers’ compensation, from every subcontractor
• W-9s before the first payment is issued
• Signed subcontractor agreements for the specific scope of work
• Conditional and unconditional lien waivers tied to each payment
• Safety certifications, OSHA 10 or 30, before a crew is cleared for the site
• Certified payroll reports on prevailing-wage public jobs

Why a missing document here stops real work

On most jobs, an incomplete document isn’t just an administrative gap, it’s a reason a sub legally can’t be on site or can’t be paid. A GC without a clean COI on file for an uninsured sub is carrying real liability the moment that sub steps onto a jobsite. A payment held up because a lien waiver never came back delays every sub down the chain who’s waiting to get paid too. And with subs rotating across multiple active jobs, the same document, an insurance certificate, a signed agreement, has to be tracked separately per job, which is exactly the kind of thing that gets missed when it’s handled over email and phone calls between site visits.

A sub’s crew shows up to start framing on a Monday, and the superintendent has to turn them away because their certificate of insurance expired the week before and nobody caught it. The job loses a day while the office chases the sub’s agent for a renewed certificate, the schedule slips, and the GC is left explaining to the owner why framing didn’t start on time, over a document that should have been confirmed the previous week.

How GatherIQ helps

GatherIQ gives a GC one place to collect and confirm every sub’s paperwork, per job:

• A saved checklist per trade, COI, W-9, signed agreement, safety cert, so every sub gets the same complete request before they’re cleared to start
• A no-login upload link per sub, so paperwork comes back through one channel instead of scattered texts and email attachments
• Automatic reminders chase an expiring COI or an outstanding lien waiver before it holds up a payment or a start date
• AI verification confirms a submitted certificate actually meets the coverage requirement, not just that a PDF was uploaded
• A job-by-job dashboard shows exactly which subs are cleared to work and which are still missing something, before the crew shows up

Common mistakes to avoid

• Letting a sub start work on site before their certificate of insurance is confirmed current.
• Tracking each sub’s paperwork status per job from memory instead of a single dashboard.
• Releasing payment before a lien waiver is actually back on file.
• Re-collecting the same sub’s COI and W-9 by hand on every new job instead of tracking renewal dates centrally.

A jobsite runs on schedule when the paperwork is handled before the crew shows up, not after someone gets turned away.

For the fundamentals, read the complete document-collection guide or the practical playbook for ending the chase. You can also generate a tailored request in seconds with the free tax document checklist tool.