Subcontractors: how to bring them into the system

In almost every maintenance operation, part of the work is done by people who aren’t on payroll. And in almost every case, that part stays outside the system: it arrives as invoices and paper work orders that someone files away.

The problem isn’t administrative. It’s that the history has gaps exactly where the most expensive interventions are, and there’s no way to check whether what’s being paid for is actually being done.

What gets lost when the work happens outside the system

The asset’s history is incomplete. If an external provider does the annual inspection and their report never enters the system, that equipment’s record has a gap every year.

Compliance can’t be verified. If the contract calls for four visits and only three happen, there’s no way to know until someone raises the issue.

The asset’s real cost is wrong. It’s missing exactly the part that costs the most.

The proof doesn’t exist. In an inspection or after an incident, the contractor’s report sits in the contractor’s own system.

How they get in

They’re registered as providers and receive the work orders assigned to them. From there they log the same things your own staff would: time spent, materials consumed, a completed checklist, photos, and a signature.

They can also have their own linked warehouses, and you can set a per-item price with their agreed discount and reference, so the agreed percentage is applied automatically when generating the purchase order.

And one detail that decides whether this happens at all: if the software is priced per user, registering every contractor becomes a financial decision, and usually one that doesn’t get made. In GMAO Cloud, licenses are unlimited on all three plans.

What they can see and what they can’t

Their scope is configurable: they see only the orders assigned to them and the documents marked as visible to providers in the document manager.

That per-document visibility is what makes it work without supervision. It’s decided once, per document type, instead of filtering by hand every time someone asks for something.

And when the relationship ends, access is revoked but the user is kept: the documentation stays yours, they stop seeing it, and the history keeps the author of every job they did. If the account were deleted instead, every one of their orders would lose the record of who carried it out.

When the contractor also uses GMAO Cloud

Here’s something almost no other system has, and it solves a very specific problem.

The usual approach when both companies have a system is to exchange files: one exports, the other imports, someone reconciles. It works until it doesn’t, and when it fails nobody knows on which side the data was lost.

There’s a direct connector between installations, in both directions — from client to subcontractor and back. Work moves from one system to the other with no intermediate file, and the key point is that the order keeps its traceability as it crosses the boundary between the two companies, instead of turning into a line on a delivery note.

In facility management and in chains that rely on contractors — where the chain usually has three links: owner, manager, and executor — this is one of the things that removes the most administrative work.

The material the contractor supplies

One point that usually falls into a grey area: when the provider supplies the spare part, that consumption never gets recorded anywhere on your side, so the per-asset cost ends up incomplete exactly where the most expensive parts are.

The fix is to have the consumption recorded on the order even when the material belongs to the provider. The item exists in the catalogue with its cost, and it gets linked to the intervention, the equipment, and the date.

That has two effects. The asset’s accumulated cost becomes real, which is what decides whether it gets repaired again or replaced. And you get traceability of exactly which part was installed, which in sectors with batches and expiry dates isn’t optional.

If the provider has a linked warehouse and an agreed price per item, the loop also closes on the financial side.

How to check that the contract is being fulfilled

With two reports, and both need the contractor’s orders to be inside the system.

Annual plan executed. How many interventions were scheduled and how many were done, by site and by provider. This is the one that goes to the follow-up meeting.

Response and resolution times. If there are committed deadlines, statuses with their maximum time and the SLA entity let you measure separately how long it takes to respond and how long it takes to resolve.

On top of that come hours per provider and cost per piece of equipment, which is what lets you compare contractors on equal terms.

The objection they’ll raise

“We already have our own system.” It’s a reasonable point, and it’s worth having an answer ready.

What you’re asking isn’t for them to drop theirs: it’s for them to record, in yours, the work they do for you — information they have to give you anyway. If they also use GMAO Cloud, the connector makes it automatic.

And there’s an argument that usually works: the report signed in the client’s system is their proof too. When there’s a dispute over whether a visit happened, having the record with date, author, and signature helps them just as much.

Registering a provider isn’t the same as giving them access to everything

A reasonable concern that holds a lot of people back: if I give the contractor access, do they see my costs, my rates, my other providers?

No. Their scope is configured by profile and they only see the orders assigned to them. Documents carry their own visibility, decided by type. And they have no reason to see either the full asset catalogue or what other providers are doing.

It’s worth framing it that way when you propose it, because resistance usually comes from assuming it’s all-or-nothing.

Where to start

With one contractor and one type of work, not all of them at once. Usually the one doing mandatory maintenance, because that’s where a complete file matters most: legal maintenance rests on the history of orders, checklists, and documentation with their dates, and if those orders live in another system, the file is incomplete.

Once that works, the rest follows the same pattern.

And one recommendation on how to approach it: agree it when the contract renews, not halfway through it. Recording in your system stops being a request and becomes part of the contracted service, which is exactly what it is.

If you’d like to see how to integrate your providers, you can request a demo or write to us.