Vendors

Vendors is your contractor directory. Its real job isn't the phone numbers — it's the expiry dates.

Why coverage tracking matters

Adding a vendor

VendorsAdd vendor.

Ask for the certificate and the clearance letter, put the dates in, and upload the documents to the library.

Reading the directory

Vendors is a table, one row per contractor: the name and trade, their contact details, an Insurance (COI) chip and a WorkSafeBC chip, and their researched rating. The two certificates sit in their own columns so the expiry dates line up down the page — the one that lapses next can be found by looking.

Each certificate chip reads one of four ways:

Narrow the list with the filters above it:

• Search covers the name, trade, email and phone.
• Trade — the trades your vendors actually carry, plus No trade recorded where some have none.
• Cover — Any cover, Fully covered, Needs attention or Expired. Needs attention is the one to reach for before handing out work: expiring, expired and not on file together, because all three mean the same thing for the decision — check before you hire.
• Source — Everyone, Yours or Suggested, each with a count. Every vendor in your directory today is one your council added, so Suggested is empty for now; ManageStrata will propose vetted contractors there once it has some to offer for your area.

Sort sits beside the result count rather than with the filters, because ordering the list doesn't narrow it: Name, Cover risk (worst first) or Rating (unrated vendors last). Clear filters leaves the sort alone.

The filters are kept in the page address, so a narrowed view survives opening a vendor and pressing back — and can be bookmarked or sent to another council member. On a phone the table becomes a list of cards, each showing both certificates as a line of "what it is, until when".

A vendor's own page

Open a vendor from the directory to see everything the corporation knows about them, and to answer the question the list can't: should we use them again?

Where a certificate has lapsed or isn't on file, the page names which one at the top — No insurance on file, WorkSafeBC clearance has lapsed — and what to ask the contractor for. A contractor with valid insurance and no WorkSafeBC date is not described as uninsured; the missing clearance is a different problem with a different consequence.

Edit, Research and Remove are all here, and only here. A Remove button repeated down a list is a Remove pressed by accident.

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. On the vendor's page, press Research (or Research again): it reads their Google Business listing — the rating, the review count, what recent reviews say — and writes it up under Reputation with a fit verdict for their trade. The page shows which listing was read, because a search can turn up a same-named business somewhere else.

Using the directory

When you assign a work order, the job offers your contractors as a ranked list — a row each, showing the trade, the certificate status and whatever the research turned up. Three things decide the order:

1. Trade relevance. Matched on what the job describes rather than on the word you typed, so "leaking pipe" still finds a plumber.
2. Coverage. A contractor with a current COI and a current WorkSafeBC clearance ranks above one whose certificate is expiring, expired or not on file — and the row names which certificate it is, rather than calling a contractor with valid insurance "uninsured". The ranking shouldn't help you hire someone without cover.
3. Reputation. The researched rating and fit verdict, where there is one.

Keep Notes on the vendor's page 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. They belong on the work order, which compares them, states the spread, marks the lowest, and tells you what a spend of that size needs approving. Accepting one gives that contractor the job.

You can also send a contractor a quote link and let them file their own bid — no account, no password, and nobody retyping a PDF at nine at night. How the links work →

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

Open the vendor, then Remove. The confirm step shows what's on file and, where they've been given work, how many work orders name them.

• A vendor you've never paid can be removed. Their work orders keep the name as the record of who did the job, but the link to the contact goes — their certificates stop being tracked.
• A vendor you've paid can't be removed at all. The books keep who was paid, and a posting that lost its payee would be a hole in them. If the name is wrong, correct it with Edit instead.

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.