How it works
From a photo on a phone to evidence you can rely on.
Eight steps, and a person in the loop at the point it matters. Nothing becomes evidence because software decided it should.
The workflow
What actually happens
Step 1: Register the subcontractor
Add them to your register with their name, mobile and trade. SubSure issues a secure upload link at the same time — issuing the link is part of adding them, not a separate step to remember.
Step 2: Send the secure link
The link goes to them by text. It is tied to that subcontractor, expires, and is verified by asking for the last four digits of their own mobile — enough to defeat a forwarded link or a screenshot without asking anyone to create an account.
Step 3: They supply the evidence
They open the link and see exactly which documents you require, with a photo button against each. No app to install, no password, no form to fill in first.
Step 4: The document is checked before it is read
Every upload is validated by its actual bytes rather than its file name, scanned for malware, and PDFs are rebuilt in a format that cannot carry active content. Anything that fails is refused, not quarantined and forgotten.
Step 5: Fields are extracted, then confirmed by a person
The expiry date, insurer, policy number, cover amount and dates are read from the document. The subcontractor is then shown what was read and asked to correct anything wrong — the expiry date first, since it is the field everything else depends on. Anything the reading was unsure about is flagged for a second look.
Step 6: Your requirements decide
Once confirmed, the document is evaluated against the requirements your organisation has configured: which document types are required, for which trades and states, and what minimum cover applies. The same inputs always produce the same answer.
Step 7: Renewals are chased before they lapse
Reminders go out at 60, 30 and 15 days before a document expires, and again once it has. After two unanswered reminders the follow-up stops texting and asks you to intervene — a third automated message was not going to work either.
Step 8: The history is kept
A replaced certificate is retained in full rather than overwritten, alongside the decision made at the time and the rules in force when it was made. That is what lets you answer a question about last March with last March's rules.
Extraction and evaluation are separate
A model reads what the document says. Rules you control decide what that means.
What the AI does
Reads a photograph of a certificate and reports the values printed on it — the expiry date, the insurer, the policy number, the cover amount. It reports how clearly it could read each one, and flags anything a person should look at.
It is asked not to form a view on compliance, and it has nowhere to record one.
What the rules do
Compare the confirmed values against your configured requirements. Is this document type required for this trade in this state? Is it present? Has it expired? Does the cover meet your minimum? Worst answer wins across everything required.
Deterministic, and the same every time. A compliance decision is never a judgement call made by a model.
Between the two sits the person holding the document. Extracted values are shown to the subcontractor and confirmed or corrected by them before anything is evaluated — an unconfirmed reading is not treated as evidence at all.
Your requirements
Configured by you, within deliberate limits.
Every organisation requires something slightly different. SubSure lets you set which document types are required, scope them to a trade or a state, and set a minimum cover — and stops there.
Document types
Chosen from the platform catalogue rather than typed as free text, so a requirement always refers to something the system can evaluate.
Scope
A requirement can apply to everyone, or only to one trade, or only in one state.
Minimum cover
An organisation-wide public liability minimum, with a per-requirement override where a higher-risk trade needs more.
Warning period
How far ahead a document should start showing as expiring on your register.
There is deliberately no free-text rule builder. An open rules language would let logic be written that the evaluator cannot reason about consistently — which would undo the guarantee that rules, not AI, decide compliance, just from the other direction.
See it against your own requirements.
The clearest way to judge whether SubSure fits is to set it up the way your organisation actually works.