Subcontractor Scheduling Software: Dispatching 1099 Crews in 2026

TL;DR

Not all field capacity is W-2. Most growing service companies run a mix: their own techs, a couple of 1099 installers, a partner crew they hand overflow to in July, and seasonal help. The scheduling problem is not assignment — it is confirmation and proof. Subs do not sit in your office and often work for two other companies the same week, so "did they accept it" and "are they on site" are the two questions that eat a dispatcher's day.

As of September 2026, the working setup is a board where an outside crew gets a Tech-role login showing only their own jobs, an accept-or-decline confirmation in a text thread instead of a phone call, a tentative hold that keeps the slot alive while you wait on a yes, and GPS-backed arrival timestamps. GetTimePad runs $79/mo Starter, $199/mo Pro (where staff roles, Tech Mode and GPS land), and $499/mo Agency, with Extra Staff Seats at $25/mo — and it does not touch 1099 payments, sub payouts, or insurance certificates.

Why subs break a board built for employees

An employee schedule assumes three things that are not true of a subcontractor.

It assumes the person will see the assignment. Your tech opens the app at 7 a.m. because that is the job; a sub opens it when they remember your company exists, possibly after committing their Thursday elsewhere.

It assumes exclusivity. A sub's 2 p.m. is contested, and you lose that contest to whoever confirmed first. Capacity planning that treats a sub like a guaranteed slot is capacity planning that lies to you, which is why the arithmetic in our technician capacity planning guide has to be run separately for owned and borrowed capacity.

And it assumes a shared standard. Your tech knows to text before arriving and photograph the work. A sub knows their own habits, so anything you need documented has to be a required step in the app.

None of that makes subs a bad idea — overflow crews are how a five-truck shop takes a twelve-truck week without hiring for a peak that ends in six weeks. It just means the dispatch board needs a status the employee model never did: offered but not yet accepted.

Give a sub visibility into their own jobs only

The first rule of putting an outside crew in your software: they see their work, not your business.

Assign every sub the Tech role. GetTimePad's staff roles are Owner, Admin, and Tech, and Tech is the one that matters: a Tech sees only the jobs assigned to them — address, time window, customer name and phone, scope, notes, photos — not the rest of the calendar, not your pricing, not your other customers. They run their day in Tech Mode on their own phone. That boundary is not paranoia: the same crew probably subs for a competitor in the same metro, and a full calendar view hands them your job volume and a list of customers to quote next spring.

Give each sub their own login, never a shared account: a shared login destroys the arrival record. And deactivate the seat the week a sub stops working with you.

The accept-or-decline loop, and why a text beats a call

The single change that returns the most dispatcher time: stop calling subs to offer work. A call is a coin flip — they are under a sink, on a roof, or driving, so you leave a message and they call back at 6 p.m. By then you have either given the job away or held it open all afternoon on nothing.

A text thread inverts that. The offer goes out in writing with everything needed to decide — date, window, area, scope, and what the crew is being asked to do — and the sub replies yes or no when they surface. That buys you four things a call never gives you:

• A written record. Nobody argues later about what time was quoted or which job it was.
• Parallel offers. Offer Thursday to two crews and take the first yes — impossible on the phone without double-committing.
• Visibility. Unanswered offers stack where you can see them instead of living in your dispatcher's head.
• A thread that survives. Scope changes, gate codes, and "running an hour behind" all land in one place. The logic that makes customer texting work applies to crews — see the two-way texting playbook.

Then enforce one rule: an unanswered offer expires. Two hours for next-day work, fifteen minutes for same-day emergency. An offer with no deadline is not an offer, it is a hope. And when nobody accepts, the job goes back on the board as unassigned.

Holding a tentative slot while you wait on a yes

The awkward gap is the twenty minutes, or four hours, between offering a job and hearing back. In that window the slot is neither free nor booked, and both wrong answers cost money: booked turns away a customer for a job that never confirms, free sells the same window twice.

The answer is an explicit tentative state, not a mental note. Put the job on the calendar in an unconfirmed status with a hold expiry: it occupies the slot so nobody sells over it, but reads visibly as not confirmed. When the sub accepts it flips to confirmed; when the hold expires it drops back to unassigned.

Two habits make this work. Never send a customer confirmation off a tentative hold — that confirmation is a promise, and you cannot make it on a crew who has not answered. And give every hold an owner and a time. A hold with no expiry is exactly the mechanism that creates a double-booked Thursday, and the discipline that keeps lunch, admin, and drive time from being overwritten is the same discipline that keeps holds honest.

Who owns the customer, and what the customer is told

This is a business decision before it is a software decision.

You own the customer. The lead came to you, the quote is yours, the warranty conversation comes back to you. The sub is performing the work, not acquiring the account. Keep the customer record, message thread, quote, and job history in your system, never in the sub's.

Tell the customer who is arriving. Not the contract structure, but the practical facts: the name of the person coming and whether the truck carries different branding. A stranger in an unfamiliar van with no warning is the fastest route to a cancelled job, or to a customer who deals with that crew directly next time. Put the name in the arrival window text exactly as you would for your own tech, and settle the signage question once. What is not fine is the customer discovering the arrangement at the door.

Whether a crew is properly classified as an independent contractor rather than an employee is a legal and tax question, and it turns on how the relationship works, not on what the paperwork says. Read the small-business context at the SBA and the occupational background at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, then talk to your own accountant or attorney.

Arrival proof, not arrival claims

With your own tech, "I'm on site" is usually true, and when it is not you handle it at the shop. With a sub you have less leverage and more exposure: the customer is calling you, and all you have is a text saying the crew is ten minutes out.

Use the same instrumentation you run on your own trucks. Require en-route and arrived status changes in the app, backed by live GPS and traffic-based ETA so the timestamp reflects where the vehicle actually is. Now you answer "where are they?" with a fact instead of a relay, you catch a late start in time to warn the customer, and you can settle the disputes that otherwise have no evidence. Device-level tracking is an add-on at $15/device/mo when the hardware goes in a vehicle you do not own.

Photo documentation is the handoff record

The case for job photos is strongest where subs are involved, and the reason has nothing to do with trust. It is continuity.

A sub does the rough-in and leaves. Three days later your own tech finishes it. Without photos your tech arrives blind and either calls the sub — who does not answer, because they are on someone else's job — or guesses. With before, during, and after photos required on the job record, the handoff becomes self-service.

The same record settles damage claims and protects you when a customer says the work was never completed. Make the photo steps mandatory, not encouraged — a sub has no reason to build your documentation habit voluntarily. What to capture is in our job photo documentation guide.

The per-seat math when a sub works six days a month

A sub who runs six jobs a month still needs a login, and a login costs a seat. Starter at $79/mo covers one staff member, Pro at $199/mo up to five, Extra Staff Seats are $25/mo each on Starter or Pro, and Agency at $499/mo is unlimited staff. Annual billing gives two months free.

So a four-truck shop with three regular subs sits on Pro at $199/mo with five included seats plus two extra at $25/mo, or $249/mo. The math turns as the bench grows: at Pro plus twelve extra seats you have reached $499/mo anyway, and Agency at that price also brings multi-location support, API and webhook access, device management, and an audit-trail activity log. With a long list of occasional crews, move to Agency and stop counting.

Keep the bill honest by deactivating seats when a sub goes dormant, and do not create a seat per person on a partner crew that always works together — unless you need to know which specific person was on site. If you are still shortlisting platforms, our roundup of the best dispatch software for service companies covers where mixed-crew support actually differs between vendors.

What this does not cover

GetTimePad schedules, offers, confirms, proves arrival, and documents. It does not issue 1099 payments, calculate payouts or splits, track certificates of insurance or license expiry, store compliance documents, or determine worker classification. There is no accounting module and no payroll. If payouts and certificate expiry are the main pain, plan for a second tool.

A week-one setup

1. Add each regular sub as a Tech role user with their own login; deactivate anyone dormant.
2. Create an unconfirmed job status with a visible hold expiry, distinct from confirmed.
3. Template the offer text: date, window, area, scope, reply-by time.
4. Make en route, arrived, and before-and-after photos required — no exception for outside crews.
5. Make the customer confirmation name the arriving person, then count seats against pricing.

Frequently asked questions

What is subcontractor scheduling software?

Subcontractor scheduling software is a dispatch system that can assign work to crews who are not on your payroll, confirm that they accepted the job, and prove they arrived — without giving them access to your whole customer book. GetTimePad covers the scheduling, confirmation, and arrival side with staff roles and Tech Mode on the $199/mo Pro plan, plus extra seats at $25/mo. See pricing.

How much does it cost to add a subcontractor to GetTimePad?

An Extra Staff Seat is $25/mo per seat on Starter or Pro, on top of the base plan — $79/mo Starter for one staff member, $199/mo Pro for up to five staff, or $499/mo Agency for unlimited staff. If you carry more than roughly a dozen occasional subs, Agency at $499/mo is usually cheaper than stacking seats. Full numbers are at pricing.

Can a subcontractor see my whole schedule and customer list?

No, and they should not. Assign subs the Tech role so they see only the jobs assigned to them — address, time window, scope, and job notes — rather than your full calendar, your pricing, or your other customers. Your book of business stays yours, which matters most when the same crew also works for a competitor.

How do I know a subcontractor actually showed up on time?

Require the sub to mark en route and arrived in the app on their phone, and use live GPS with traffic-based ETA so the timestamps are grounded in real location rather than a text saying they are close. That gives you an arrival record you can show a customer instead of relaying the crew's word. See GPS.

Does GetTimePad handle 1099 payments or insurance certificates for subs?

No. GetTimePad schedules, dispatches, confirms, and documents the work, but it does not issue 1099 payments, calculate sub payouts, track certificates of insurance, or store compliance documents. Those stay in your accounting system and your own document files, and worker classification questions belong with your accountant or attorney.

Should the customer be told a subcontractor is doing the work?

Tell the customer the name of the person arriving and the company on the truck before the appointment, because a stranger at the door with unfamiliar branding is the fastest way to generate a cancellation or a complaint. You can present the sub as part of your crew as long as the name and vehicle match what the customer was told.