Short answer. A subcontract order: scope, quantity, price, deadline, milestones, retention rule for lateness, tolerance on materials; sent to the partner, accepted on their portal or by WhatsApp, and frozen in the accepted version. Consigned materials handed over against signature, with a balance per partner like a packaging balance: consumed, returned, gap against tolerance. Tracking by photographed milestones and partial deliveries, delay counted per delivery. An acceptance checked per the plan of the incoming inspection guide, separating accepted from refused. A computed settlement: accepted times price, minus the retention computed by the order's rule, materials balanced; the partner's invoice is matched to that figure, and no order, no invoice. A board per partner: on time, accepted, price against reference, materials gap, preferred, normal or watched level.
This guide is for the garment maker entrusting finishers, the construction company entrusting electrical and plumbing, the solar installer entrusting fitting, the distributor entrusting transport, the maintenance company entrusting jobs, and the founder based in France who wants to know what was entrusted, to whom, for when, and what is really owed. In the common description, a subcontractor is a person or business which undertakes to perform part or all of the obligations of another's contract, and the main contractor uses them for specific tasks of a project; this guide builds the application that keeps those tasks under order. It does not repeat how a goods purchase is requested, approved and matched, described in the purchase requests guide; here the partner works on what is consigned. The validity of retention or penalty clauses, and labour-law rules on subcontracting, are for counsel; the application applies the rule the manager writes in the order and the partner accepts.
Subcontracting, in five layers
Acceptance and settlement are the accented layer: everything there is computed from the accepted order, nothing is negotiated after the fact.
Order. One order per entrusted job: the scope in words and quantities, the unit or lump-sum price, the deadline, expected milestones with their proof, the retention rule for lateness, for instance one percent per day capped at ten, the materials tolerance, for instance one percent; sent, accepted by the partner, and versioned: a change is an amendment, accepted too. The order can come from a routing operation of the manufacturing guide entrusted outside, from a job of the field service guide, or from a customer order. Consigned materials. Fabric, parts, components, equipment handed to the partner against signature, weighed or counted; a balance per partner kept like the packaging balance of the returnable packaging guide: handed over minus consumed minus returned; the gap is compared with the tolerance at settlement, and beyond it, invoiced or retained per the rule. Tracking. The partner has a portal, the same as the ordering portal seen from the other side, or simply WhatsApp as in the WhatsApp agent guide: accept, photograph a milestone as in the trustworthy photos guide, declare a delivery; partial deliveries are allowed, and delay is counted per delivery, not on the whole order.
Acceptance and settlement. At each delivery, the check per the plan written for this job separates accepted from refused, with photos and coded defects; at the last milestone, the settlement is computed: accepted times price, minus the retention computed by the order's rule, plus or minus the materials gap beyond tolerance; the partner's invoice is matched to that figure, and an invoice without an order or differing from the computation is returned with the detail; export follows the integration guide. Measurement. Per partner: on-time rate per delivery, accepted-piece rate, price against the job's reference, materials gap, average delay; a level, preferred, normal, watched, following written thresholds; declared capacity and open orders. The manager reads this board before entrusting the next job, in their dashboard.
One subcontract order: terms, materials, milestones, acceptance, settlement
The figure follows six hundred shirts entrusted to a workshop over seventeen days, from acceptance to invoice matching.
The terms: six hundred pieces at three hundred and eighty dinars, deadline 25 November, retention of one percent per day late capped at ten, one thousand and twenty metres of fabric and seven thousand two hundred buttons consigned, materials tolerance of one percent; accepted by the workshop on the portal on 11 November, and frozen. The materials: handed over on the 13th against signature; the workshop's materials balance opens at one thousand and twenty metres. The milestones: a forty-percent progress point on the 18th, with a timestamped photo, because the order required it; five hundred and twenty pieces delivered on the 24th, within the deadline; eighty pieces on the 27th, two days late, counted on those eighty pieces, not on the six hundred.
The acceptance: the check per plan finds fourteen major defects out of six hundred; five hundred and eighty-six pieces are accepted, fourteen refused with photos and coded defect, returned to the workshop. The settlement: five hundred and eighty-six times three hundred and eighty, two hundred and twenty-two thousand six hundred and eighty; retention of two percent on the eighty late pieces, six hundred and eight dinars, computed by the order's rule; fabric consumed one thousand and four metres, returned nine, gap seven metres, zero point seven percent, within tolerance; to pay two hundred and twenty-two thousand and seventy-two. The invoice: the workshop invoices two hundred and twenty-eight thousand, the order's figure; it is matched to the computation, the gap is returned with the detail, and it re-invoices or accepts. Nothing was negotiated by phone. Quantities, prices and names are a constructed example.
«Terms are written and accepted before the first piece; the settlement is computed from accepted, retention and materials, and the invoice is matched to that figure, never negotiated afterwards.»
Six real situations, and what the application does
Each row is a sentence heard at a business that entrusts work, and the answer is an accepted order, not a more serious partner.
Delivered late, paid anyway: delay is counted per delivery against the order's deadline, retention is computed by the rule the partner accepted, and the invoice is matched to accepted minus retention; nobody has to remember. Part of the consigned fabric vanished: materials were handed over against signature, the balance per partner is kept, and the gap beyond tolerance is invoiced or retained at settlement. Defects found at the end customer: the check at acceptance per plan refuses pieces with photos; the partner whose accepted rate drops moves to watched, inspected at one hundred percent.
The invoice does not match the order: no order, no invoice; an invoice differing from the computation is returned with the detail; the partner sees the same computation on their portal. Nobody knows who has capacity: open orders per partner, their deadlines, their level and their declared capacity are on the board; the manager entrusts the available preferred one, not the first to answer the phone. The partner has no software: the order arrives by WhatsApp with a link, they accept in one tap, photograph the milestone, declare the delivery; the rules are the same, and a better-equipped partner can plug into the partner API.
Entrusting a job, in six beats
Acceptance is the accented beat: the check per plan separates accepted from refused, and that is where the settlement is computed from.
Write the order: from a routing, a job or an order, with scope, quantity, price, deadline, milestones, retention rule and materials tolerance; rules per job type are written once, and the order inherits them. Get it accepted: on the portal or by WhatsApp; the accepted version is frozen, and a change is an accepted amendment. Hand over materials: quantities counted or weighed, signed by both; the partner's materials balance opens.
Track milestones: timestamped photos, partial deliveries declared by the partner, delay counted per delivery, reminder to the partner the day before the deadline as in the notifications guide. Accept: check per plan, accepted and refused with photos, returned materials counted; a partial delivery is partially accepted. Settle and measure: retention computed, materials gap against tolerance, invoice matched to the computation, export, and the partner's board updated by a background job as in the background jobs guide.
The partner board over 90 days: deadline, quality, price, materials
The figure is the board the manager reads before entrusting the next job: four figures per partner, and a level that follows.
The four figures: on-time delivery rate against a written threshold, eighty-five percent in the example; accepted-piece rate at check; price against the job type's reference; materials gap. The level: preferred, normal or watched, following written thresholds; preferred receives orders first; watched is inspected at one hundred percent and receives no more orders beyond the threshold; a level change is logged as in the roles guide. What the board shows: the partner with the lowest price on paper, nine percent below reference, is the one delivering on time every other order and losing three percent of the fabric; in full cost, delays and materials included, it is the most expensive.
What the manager does with it: they entrust the available preferred one, four percent below reference and on time ninety-six percent of the time; they pay the embroidery eight percent above because it has never been late; and they decide for the watched one, visit, last inspected order, or stop. Capacity: open orders per partner and their declared capacity say who can take next week's job, and the schedule of the production scheduling guide treats it as an external resource. Partners and figures are a constructed example.
«A partner is read on four figures, deadline, quality, price, materials; price alone picks the wrong one, and the board shows it before the next order.»
Putting subcontracting under orders in 2027, in weeks
Seven weeks, the first without code, and two for orders and materials, because tracking, settlement and the board are only readings of an accepted order and signed materials.
- What the manager sees: open orders per partner with their deadline and next milestone; deliveries to accept; computed settlements against received invoices; the partner board before every new order.
- What the workshop no longer does: entrust by phone, search for what was agreed, discover defects at the customer, pay an invoice without comparing it with the order, forget consigned fabric.
- What is measured: on-time rate per delivery, accepted pieces, price against reference, materials gap, retentions applied, invoice gaps, open orders and capacity per partner.
Week 1, rules: entrusted job types, the order template per type, the retention rule and its cap, materials tolerances, the acceptance control plan, partner level thresholds; with the manager, without code, and with counsel for clause validity. Weeks 2 and 3, orders and materials: versioned order from a routing, a job or an order, acceptance on the portal or by WhatsApp, signed materials hand-over, materials balance per partner. Week 4, tracking: photo milestones, partial deliveries, delay per delivery, reminders, partner portal.
Week 5, acceptance and settlement: check per plan, accepted and refused, retention computed, materials gap, invoice matched, accounting export. Week 6, take-over: open orders entered with their terms and materials already handed over, opening materials balances signed by each partner. Week 7, measurement: partner board, levels, capacity, Monday review with the buyer or the workshop lead.
- What if the partner refuses the retention rule?
- Then they do not accept the order, and the manager knows before entrusting the job; better than discovering it at invoice time. The rule is written in the order, and the partner accepts it on their portal or by WhatsApp; its validity, and what a contract may provide, are a question for counsel, not for the application.
- How is delay counted on a partial delivery?
- Per delivery: pieces delivered within the deadline carry no delay, those delivered after carry theirs, each for its days; retention is computed on the value of the late pieces, by the order's rule, with its cap. A partner delivering eighty-seven percent on time and the rest two days late is not penalised as if everything were late.
- Are consigned materials in stock?
- They leave the company's stock into a balance per partner, kept like a returnable packaging balance: handed over, consumed, returned; they are neither lost nor sold. At settlement, the gap is compared with the order's tolerance, and beyond it, invoiced or retained per the rule. A partner whose gap rises shows on the board.
- What if the partner has no software at all?
- The order reaches them by WhatsApp with a link; they accept in one tap, photograph the required milestone, declare their delivery; the rules are the same, and the application keeps the rest. An equipped partner can plug into the partner API to receive orders in their own system.
- How is the partner's invoice matched?
- To the computed settlement: accepted times price, minus retention, plus or minus the materials gap beyond tolerance; an invoice without an order number, or differing from the computation, is returned with the detail, and the partner sees the same computation on their portal. They re-invoice, or dispute a line with evidence, and the manager decides; the decision is logged.
- And a lump-sum job, without quantity?
- The order carries a lump-sum price and milestones with their share of the price, for instance thirty, forty, thirty percent; each milestone is accepted with its proof, and the settlement is computed per accepted milestone, retention applying to the late milestone. The logic is the same, the unit changes.
- How long to set this up?
- Seven weeks in the typical calendar, the first without code and two for orders and materials. A business that already has incoming inspection and production orders from the corresponding guides takes less; a business with dozens of partners, unit-tracked materials and lump-sum jobs takes more, the time to write the rules of each job type.