Subcontractor Onboarding Software for UK Contractors

The Problem

PDF onboarding packs come back half-filled. Insurance certs sit in someone's inbox. Your H&S officer finds out the CSCS card expired on the morning of a site induction. When the main contractor asks for supply-chain evidence by Friday, you are stitching it together from five different places — and the subbie has lost patience filling a 12-page PDF on his phone.

What Changes

Send one link. Your subbie completes five sections on his phone — Identity, Safety, Policies, Tickets, Privacy Consent. Your team reviews each section on its own. Approve the good parts. Reject specific sections that need rework, with a deadline if they need more time. Every submission and every approval is logged automatically — ready the next time a main contractor asks for CDM, Modern Slavery or Bribery Act evidence.

Five sections: Identity, Safety, Policies, Tickets, Privacy ConsentYour subbie submits from his phone — no app to installReject specific sections without binning the whole submissionEvery action logged automatically for CDM 2015, Modern Slavery, Bribery Act

How It Works

From one link to an approved subbie ready to start on site — structured by section, reviewable in pieces, and feeding straight into the subcontractor record your commercial, CIS and payroll teams will pull from.

1
Send the onboarding link
Create a subcontractor record and send the onboarding link. Your subbie gets a one-tap link that opens the form on his phone or a laptop — no app to install, no password to remember. Status starts at not started and moves to in progress the moment he saves the first section.
2
Your subbie fills in five sections on his phone
Identity — legal name, date of birth, National Insurance number, UTR, full address, bank sort code and account for payment. Safety — medical declaration, H&S training history, any incidents. Tickets — CSCS, CPCS, SMSTS and anything else you need, with expiry dates and front and back photos, plus an optional DVLA driving licence with share code. Policies — seven signatures for Drugs & Alcohol, Training Charges, Company Damage Liability, Small Tools, Street Furniture Liability, Privacy Consent and related. Privacy Consent — version-stamped and tied to the signature.
3
Your team reviews section by section
When your subbie submits, the status flips to pending review. Your procurement person, H&S officer and accounts person each open the record and review the bit that matters to them — Identity on one tab, Tickets on another. A tick against each section shows what is done, so nothing gets missed.
The onboarding dashboard — every subcontractor listed with ticks against the five sections (Identity, Safety, Policies, Tickets, Privacy), their onboarding status, contract status, and a warning column when insurance is close to expiring.
4
Approve — or reject specific sections with a deadline
Approve the whole record. Reject the whole record. Or reject specific sections — say, Tickets because the CSCS photo is blurry — and keep Identity and Policies approved. Set a deadline for the subbie to fix the rejected bits without restarting the whole flow. Every action is logged automatically with who did it, when, and which section.
An individual subbie record — CIS & Compliance panel shows their tax status (Unverified, 30%), UTR and NI fields, trades they cover, insurance expiry, and cards for rates, bank details and emergency contact. One click to edit or send them a mobile invite.
5
Approved subbie, ready for jobs, CIS and payroll
On approval the key details — legal name, UTR, National Insurance number, bank details, insurance expiry — land on the subcontractor record. UTR and NI flow through to CIS verification. Your subbie is ready to be allocated to jobs and paid, without anyone re-typing numbers off a PDF.
6
Keep an eye on tickets and insurance
Tickets hold their expiry dates and statuses (pending, verified, expired, revoked) on the subcontractor record so you can see which ones are about to lapse. Insurance expiry is stored and shown on the dashboard. Honest caveat: insurance expiry is visible when you look — it is not auto-alerted yet, so set a calendar check today. Automated alerts are on the roadmap.

Features That Move The Needle

Built for high-stakes construction workflows: deadlines, compliance, and audit trails.

Five sections, one at a time

Identity, Safety, Policies, Tickets, Privacy Consent. A tick against each section on the record so your reviewer sees at a glance what is filled, what is empty, and what needs a second look.

Submit from a phone — no app to install

Your subbie completes the form on whichever device is in his hand. He can finish Identity in the van, sign the seven policies on site, and upload a CSCS photo at his kitchen table — not tethered to a laptop he never uses.

Reject specific sections without binning the whole submission

When the CSCS photo is blurry but everything else is fine, reject just Tickets. Your subbie resubmits that one section — not the whole 12-page form. Approved sections stay approved.

Set a deadline to fix a section

Give your subbie a few extra days on one section — a missed medical, a ticket awaiting renewal — without holding up the parts that are already approved. The deadline is tracked on the record.

Every action logged automatically

Every submission and every approval or rejection is recorded with who did it, when, and which section. When a main contractor asks for supply-chain evidence, you hand over the record — not a folder of screenshots.

Seven policy signatures captured

Drugs & Alcohol, Training Charges, Company Damage Liability, Small Tools, Street Furniture Liability, Privacy Consent and related — each signed, time-stamped and stored on the record. Useful evidence when your main contractor asks about Bribery Act s.7 adequate procedures.

DVLA driving licence capture

Categories (C+E, HIAB, etc.), share code for employer checks, plus front and back licence photos stored against the subbie — useful when you are about to put him behind the wheel of a company vehicle or a piece of plant.

Unlimited users on every plan

Your procurement person, H&S officer, accounts team and site managers all get accounts. You are not paying per seat to let the H&S officer check the Safety section or your accounts person check bank details.

UK supply-chain compliance built in

Anchored in the frameworks your main contractor will ask you about

Subcontractor onboarding is not just a form — it is the evidence layer for a stack of UK legal frameworks your main contractor will audit you against. Site Samurai is built around the Acts and Regulations UK contractors actually reference, and is explicit about what it captures versus what it verifies.

Modern Slavery Act 2015 s.54

Businesses above the £36m turnover threshold must publish an annual slavery and human trafficking statement. SMEs below the threshold still routinely need to evidence supplier due diligence to main contractors who sit above it. Site Samurai captures a policy acknowledgment, timestamp and signature against the onboarding record — we capture the evidence of your check, we do not validate the subcontractor's own compliance.

Modern Slavery Act 2015 on legislation.gov.uk

Bribery Act 2010 s.7 — "adequate procedures"

Section 7 makes a commercial organisation liable for bribery by associated persons unless it has "adequate procedures" in place to prevent it. Onboarding subcontractors through a structured flow, with signed policies and a full history of every action, is part of demonstrating those procedures.

Bribery Act 2010 on legislation.gov.uk

Right to Work — Home Office

UK employers must check every worker's right to work using a passport, Biometric Residence Permit or the online share-code service at gov.uk/view-right-to-work. Site Samurai captures the supporting images and the timestamp of when your reviewer completed the check — it does not call the Home Office share-code API. Treat Site Samurai as the record of your check, not the check itself.

View a right to work share code — gov.uk

CDM 2015 Regulation 8 — competence

Under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, the Principal Contractor must take reasonable steps to satisfy themselves that anyone they appoint has the skills, knowledge, training and experience for the role. Capturing CSCS, CPCS, SMSTS and other tickets against the subcontractor record, with expiry dates and lifecycle statuses, is how you evidence Reg 8 when the HSE or the main contractor asks.

CDM 2015 on legislation.gov.uk

Why not just keep emailing a PDF pack?

Most UK SME contractors try three things before they land on structured onboarding software. Here is what actually goes wrong.

PDF forms + email

Subcontractors hate filling 12-page PDFs on a phone — forms come back half-completed
Insurance certificates and ticket photos get lost in email threads
No version history — which policy version did they sign?
No section-level review — it is all or nothing on the whole pack
No audit trail for main contractor supply-chain due-diligence requests

Generic compliance platforms (Avetta, Alcumus, Constructionline)

Enterprise pricing designed for Tier 1 main contractors, not SMEs
Subcontractor-side cost — the subbie pays to hold a profile you want to see
Rigid workflows — you collect what the platform collects, not what you need
Data lives in their system, not your Subcontractor record — no CIS or payroll link
Most useful as a pre-qualification layer you feed into, not a replacement for onboarding

Spreadsheet + shared drive

No audit trail — you cannot evidence when or who reviewed what
Version collisions — two admins edit the same row
Ticket and insurance expiry dates drift without alerting
No mobile submission — subcontractors email documents and admins re-key them
One admin off sick = nobody knows where the master list is

Site Samurai

Five sections — Identity, Safety, Policies, Tickets, Privacy Consent
Submit from any phone or laptop — no app to install
Reject specific sections without binning the whole submission, with deadlines to fix them
Every action logged automatically, every signature time-stamped and traceable
UTR and National Insurance stored securely — flow through to CIS verification on approval

Site Samurai is built in the UK for UK SME contractors. Onboarding is a core workflow — five sections, submission from any phone or laptop, section-by-section review with partial reject and deadline extensions, and a full history that feeds CDM 2015, Modern Slavery Act and Bribery Act evidence requests. Unlimited users on every plan, so your H&S officer and accounts team can review the record without a licence discussion.

Free onboarding templates — use them today, software or not

Two templates you can use on your next subcontractor onboarding, whether you run Site Samurai or not. Want the five-section flow on a phone with everything logged automatically? Start a trial or book 15 minutes with Rich.

CIS Subcontractor Onboarding Form

Printable onboarding form covering identity, CIS status (UTR/NI), bank details and the core fields you need to set a new subcontractor up. Use as the starting point for your own pack.

PDF

Approved Subcontractor List Template

Spreadsheet template for maintaining the approved subcontractor list your main contractor will ask for — company, trade, CIS status, insurance expiry, last reviewed date.

XLSX

Seen enough?

Start a 14-day free trial with no card required, or book 15 minutes with Rich (the founder) to walk through your exact workflow.

Not ready? Grab the free templates instead →

Why It Works

Built around how UK SME contractors actually bring subbies on: five sections they can fill in on a phone, section-by-section review with the option to reject just the bits that need rework, identity and bank details landing straight on the record, and every action logged automatically — so when a main contractor asks for supply-chain evidence under CDM 2015 or the Modern Slavery Act, you hand them the trail, not a folder of PDF attachments.

Site Samurai — built for UK SME contractors

One link, five sections, every action logged

Unlimited

Users on every plan

7 policies

Acknowledged + audited

Mobile + web

Two submission channels

Who It’s For

If you're procurement or ops and a new subbie just landed on Monday without insurance certs, UTR, or a CSCS photo in sight
If you're the H&S officer who keeps finding out about expired CSCS cards the morning of a site induction
If you're in accounts re-typing UTRs and sort codes off emailed PDFs every time a subbie gets added
If you're an SME director whose main contractor is asking for supply-chain Modern Slavery evidence by Friday
If you're a main contractor onboarding subcontractors you then need to evidence up the chain to your own client
If you run subcontractor coordination and half your week is insurance-expiry chasing and partial-reject follow-ups

Already using Site Samurai? Jump to the module features and workflows your team needs.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions teams ask before they book a demo.

Five sections. Identity — legal name, date of birth, National Insurance number, UTR, full address and postcode, bank sort code and account for payment. Safety — medical declaration, H&S training history, any incidents. Tickets — CSCS, CPCS, SMSTS, SSSTS, IPAF, PASMA and anything else you need, with expiry dates and front and back photos, plus an optional DVLA driving licence (categories, share code, front and back). Policies — seven signatures covering Drugs & Alcohol, Training Charges, Company Damage Liability, Small Tools, Street Furniture Liability, Privacy Consent and related, each signed and time-stamped. Privacy Consent — version-stamped, tied to the signature. Each section has its own tick so you can see at a glance what has been filled.

No — and we will not tell you it does. The onboarding form captures images (passport, visa, share code, DVLA licence) and stores them on the subcontractor record. The actual online right-to-work check against the Home Office share-code service at gov.uk/view-right-to-work is a step your team performs — we hold the images and the timestamp of when your reviewer saw them, we do not talk to the Home Office. Treat Site Samurai as the record of your check, not the check itself.

It captures signatures and evidence — it does not validate them. Under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 s.54, businesses above the £36m turnover threshold must publish a statement. Most UK SMEs sit below that, but still need to show supplier due diligence to main contractors who sit above it. Site Samurai gives you a signed policy, a time-stamped record, and a history you can hand over. Whether the subbie actually complies with the Act is outside what any software can check.

No. DBS checks are a separate process through a registered DBS body — Site Samurai does not run them or connect to DBS. If a subbie needs a DBS check, you run it through your normal provider and attach the certificate as a document on the subcontractor record.

Insurance expiry is stored on the subcontractor record and shown on the dashboard. Honest caveat: it is stored but not auto-alerted today — you see it on the dashboard when you look. If you need renewal reminders now, set a calendar check. Automated alerts on insurance expiry are on the roadmap. Ticket expiry (CSCS, CPCS and so on) already carries richer statuses — pending, verified, expired, revoked — on the record.

Yes. CSCS, CPCS, SMSTS, SSSTS, IPAF, PASMA and anything else you need — add them to your ticket library and they are available on every onboarding. Each ticket on the subbie record carries an expiry date and a status (pending, verified, expired, revoked), with front and back photos uploaded during onboarding. A subbie can submit a dozen tickets in one flow.

Yes — and most do. Your subbie opens the onboarding link on his phone, completes Identity, uploads a CSCS photo, and signs the seven policies from the van on site. No app to install, no password. This is a deliberate design choice: if you send a 12-page PDF to a subbie who only has a phone, you will get it back half-filled.

Instead of rejecting the whole form because one ticket photo is blurry, you reject just the Tickets section. Your subbie resubmits only that section. Approved sections stay approved, the history records which sections were rejected and why, and he is not sent back to square one. This is the single biggest reason a five-section form beats a 12-page PDF.

When your subbie is ready to mobilise on everything except one outstanding item — a medical booked for next Tuesday, a CSCS renewal in the post, an insurance certificate being reissued. Set a deadline on that section, and your subbie can start on the approved parts while the outstanding item stays tracked. Every deferral is recorded in the history so you can show the main contractor why the record was approved with one section pending.

Yes — that is the main reason the history is there. Every submission, every approval, every partial reject and every deferral is recorded with who did it, when, and which section. When a main contractor asks you to evidence CDM 2015 Reg 8 competence checks on your supply chain, or wants to see your Bribery Act s.7 adequate procedures for vetting subbies, you export the history and the subcontractor records. You are not reconstructing it from email threads.