Vendors
A contractor directory that tracks insurance and WorkSafeBC expiry dates, so nobody works on your property uncovered.
Vendors is your contractor directory. Its real job isn't the phone numbers — it's the expiry dates.
Why coverage tracking matters
An uninsured contractor is the corporation's problem
If a contractor is injured on your property without WorkSafeBC coverage, or causes damage without liability insurance, the exposure can land on the corporation and therefore on the owners. Councils rarely check expiry dates, because nothing prompts them to — the certificate arrived two years ago and has been in a drawer since.
ManageStrata warns you before coverage lapses. That is the point of this page.
Adding a vendor
VendorsAdd vendor.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Name and contact | Company, phone, email |
| Trade | Plumbing, electrical, roofing, landscaping, elevator, cleaning… |
| Insurance (COI) expiry | From the certificate of insurance |
| WorkSafeBC expiry | From their clearance letter — BC; equivalent elsewhere |
| Notes | Rates, who they've worked for, how they were |
Ask for the certificate and the clearance letter, put the dates in, and upload the documents to the library.
Do the whole directory in one sitting
Getting current certificates from every contractor you use takes a couple of emails and an afternoon. Doing it once, now, is far easier than discovering a lapse when something has already gone wrong.
Vendor Compliance
CouncilThe Vendor Compliance agent is included on the Council plan and above.
It watches the expiry dates and warns you before a contractor's COI or WorkSafeBC coverage lapses, proposing a reminder for you to send. Like every agent, it proposes and a person decides. See AI agents.
AI vendor research
For a contractor you're considering, AI research fills in what it can find about them so you're not starting from a blank record.
Verify before you rely on it
Researched details are a starting point. Insurance and WorkSafeBC status must always be verified from the actual certificate and clearance letter. Never enter a coverage date you haven't seen documented — that's precisely the field where a plausible-looking wrong answer causes real harm.
Using the directory
When you assign a work order, you pick from here. On the Council plan, AI vendor match suggests a vendor by trade and current coverage status.
Keep notes on the record as you go — who was quick, who over-quoted, who did the job that failed two years later. Councils turn over; institutional memory about contractors otherwise leaves with the outgoing president.
Getting quotes
For anything substantial, get three. Attach them to the work order so the decision is documented.
Owners will ask, and a council that can produce three quotes and a minuted reason for choosing one of them is in a very different position from one that can't.
Ongoing contracts
Elevator servicing, landscaping, cleaning, management — recurring contracts have renewal and notice dates that matter. Record the vendor here, upload the contract to the library, and put the renewal date on the compliance calendar as a tracked duty. Auto-renewing contracts with a short notice window are a classic way for a council to lose a year.
Removing a vendor
Remove one you no longer use. Their history — work orders, expenses — stays, because removing it would falsify the record of what was done and what it cost.
A yearly review
Once a year, ideally alongside the budget:
- Is every coverage date current?
- Are the rates still competitive?
- Is anyone on the list you'd no longer call?
- Do you have a backup for each critical trade?
That last one matters more than it sounds. At 2am with water coming through a ceiling, "who do we call?" needs to have an answer already.
Still stuck? Open Support in the top bar of the app, ask the Assistant, or contact us.