Subcontractor Certificates and Workers' Compensation Insurance — United States and Canada: Register and Expiration Dates (free edition, Odoo 19 Community)

The problem, before the solution

The principal contractor is liable for a subcontractor who is not covered. It is the same pain on both sides of the border, and it is not the insurance premium that drives the purchase: it is this risk.

In the United States, the worker of an uninsured subcontractor turns to the general contractor, which, depending on the state, is treated as their statutory employer. In Quebec, the principal contractor is jointly and severally liable for contributions its subcontractor failed to pay to the CNESST. In Ontario, the WSIB passes the debt of a subcontractor without a clearance certificate up the chain.

And what actually happens is always the same sequence. The certificate is requested at signing. It is filed away. Payments go out for two years. On the day of the accident, the document pulled from the binder expired eighteen months ago.

What this module does, and what it does not

It keeps the register, and it tracks dates. Each subcontractor tracked, each document required from them according to their jurisdiction, each certificate received with its number, its issuer, its attached document and — this is the whole point — its expiration date. The partner record shows at a glance what is missing, what has expired and since when.

A certificate without an expiry date is rejected. Not flagged: rejected. A document whose expiry nobody knows proves nothing, yet it reassures — the worst of both.

Status is recomputed on every read, never on write. A certificate becomes expired at midnight without anyone recording anything. A stored status would be lying by the day after it was computed.

It warns once, not every day. The warning period belongs to the document. A renewed certificate no longer makes noise: the presence of a more recent, still valid document silences the alert on the old one.

It blocks no payment. Refusing a payment whose certificate has expired belongs to the full edition. This is deliberate: it is the only action in this family that no external portal can perform on your behalf, because it happens in the ERP, at the moment the money goes out.

It observes; it does not conclude. It says that a certificate has expired. It does not say that the job site must stop, or that the contract must be suspended.

Why there is no default rate and no default duration

Workers' compensation insurance is federal neither in the United States nor in Canada. Each U.S. state writes its own workers' compensation act and decides whether the risk is insured on a private market or with an exclusive state fund. Each Canadian province and territory has its own board, its own scale of classification units and its own name for the clearance certificate.

The consequence is enforced in the code: a certificate's validity period is zero until someone has actually looked it up, and the module refuses any period entered without citing its source. A zero reads as an open question; a plausible value reads as an answer, and nobody ever checks it again.

This is not token caution: the check is in the code, and a test fails if it is removed.

What the free edition covers

• The bodies — one jurisdiction per line, with its regime (private market, exclusive state fund, public board), the exact name of the certificate it issues, its verification portal, and its validity period if it has been recorded and sourced.

• Required documents — scoped by country and by state or province: you do not ask a Texas subcontractor for an Ontario certificate. A document with no country is required from everyone, which lets you add your own contractual requirements.

• Certificates received — number, insurer or issuing body, policy number, coverage amount, attached document, issue date and expiration date, chatter.

• Compliance seen from the third party's record — documents up to date, a document expiring soon, a document expired, a document never provided, with details that can be copied into the follow-up email.

• The “To follow up” screen and the automatic daily warning.

What the module does not do

It does not block any payment. It calculates no premium and carries no rate or classification code — neither NCCI nor a provincial classification unit. It produces no payroll report. It queries no portal: not ISNetworld, not Avetta, not a board's portal. All of that belongs to the full edition.

Two roles

User: view the register, enter certificates received. Manager: bodies, required documents, validity periods and their sources.