Managing contractors

All your trade partners appear in the Contractors section, organized into three default group tabs.

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  All — every Contractor in your database

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  Contracted — trade partners currently engaged on a job

• ●

  Pre-qualified — Contractors undergoing the pre-qualification process

Each group reflects the current stage of work and includes the qualification requirements for that stage. Assigning a group is optional, Contractors with no group will still be accessible in the All tab.

Contractors list on Area

Each row provides a quick view of a Contractor’s compliance status, business name, primary trade, and risk grade. Compliance status reflects where the Contractor is in the qualification process and can be one of the following.

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  Pending (grey) — required compliance tasks that are still outstanding.

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  Needs review (yellow) — all required compliance tasks have been completed and are awaiting review.

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  Compliant (green) — a Contractor has been reviewed, approved, and meets qualification requirements.

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  Non-compliant (orange) — one or more critical records or documents have expired, are missing, or no longer meet requirements.

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  Inactive (white) — a Contractor didn’t accept the qualification invite within 30 days or was marked inactive. Compliance monitoring and email alerts are suspended.

• ●

  Blacklisted (black) — a Contractor has been designated as ineligible for future consideration. Compliance monitoring and notifications are suspended.

Use filters to quickly find contractors by status, trade, or registered state. You can sort the Contractor list alphabetically, by date added, or by risk score.

A Contractor profile provides a centralized view of a trade partner qualification tasks, compliance records, documents, and their current statuses. It also includes the contractor risk score and job capacities, available as additional feature on Area.

Contractor profile on Area

When invited, a Contractor creates a free account and completes a 13-question onboarding form to comply with assigned qualification requirements.

Area then runs record verifications and generates a list of tasks based on qualification criteria, prompting trade partners or Employers to provide any missing records and documents.

Area runs instant checks and pulls records directly from verified sources. This includes TIN matching with the IRS, obtaining entity information and filing status from all 50 Secretaries of State, and verifying trade licenses and diversity certificates with issuing authorities. The same applies to OSHA safety records, bankruptcies, judgments, claims, and other litigation checks for court cases where the contractor is listed as plaintiff or defendant.

View the full list of contractor records and relevant verification sources here.

Area collects and stores any compliance documents, including W-9 forms, Certificate of Insurance (COI), financial statements, work-in-progress reports, you name it.

All required values are extracted from provided documents and mapped with AI for further risk assessment and monitoring. Area AI Agents sort, cross-match, and enrich the extracted records, ensuring compliance data is accurate and current.

Area will automatically create a task to update any documents that have an expiration date or require renewal.

Select Edit contractor from the secondary menu on contractor profile to edit group, status, contractor number, and select the primary trade.

Edit contractor on Area

Area allows you to export all contractor qualification records in a single sheet, with the option to include supporting documents.

Export contractor on Area

1. 2.5.1.

   Click on the secondary menu in the upper right corner of a contractor card.

2. 2.5.2.

   Select Export.

3. 2.5.3.

   Select the export sheet file format from PDF, XML, or CSV.

4. 2.5.4.

   Select whether you want to include supporting docs.

5. 2.5.5.

   Click Download.

Logs provide a history of contractor activity for future audits, including qualification tasks, compliance reviews, automated checks, uploaded documents, email notifications, exported data sheets, internal notes, and other actions performed in Area. Logs are accessible from the secondary menu in the upper-right corner of the Contractor Profile for any team members with access to add Contractors and view certain qualification categories.

Trade partners can be invited, added manually, or migrated to Area via API, where custom qualification and risk criteria are applied.

Follow the steps below to add or invite a new Contractor to qualify on Area.

Add contractor on Area

1. 3.1.

   Click the plus icon + in upper right corner.

2. 3.2.

   Select an optional contractor group. If no group is selected, the contractor will appear only in the “All” tab.

3. 3.3.

   Enter business name, email address, and an optional phone number.

4. 3.4.

   To add the Contractor without sending an invitation, select “Don't invite contractor to sign up.” Area won’t send any emails to the Contractor until they are invited.

5. 3.5.

   Select the required insurance policies, limits, and endorsements. Verify the certificate holder name and address, which default to your company information.

6. 3.6.

   Select the financial documents the Contractor will be required to provide.

7. 3.7.

   Select any additional required documents from the list.

8. 3.8.

   To reuse the selected qualification requirements for future contractors, save them as a template. Multiple templates can be created for different qualification requirements.

9. 3.9.

   Click Invite and you're done.

After you invite a contractor, their profile will appear in the selected group with a pending status. Area will automatically send a qualification invite email and follow up until the qualification tasks are complete.

If a contractor hasn’t accepted a qualification invite within 30 days, their status will automatically change to “Inactive”. You will get an email alert when that happens.