Contractor managementKnow what each contractor actually makes you
Give a contractor their own jobs and their own screen, track what they cost and what they bring in, and keep the rest of the business's money out of their view.
Contractors sit awkwardly in most software
Shop software assumes employees. So contractors get handled one of two ways: a full login that shows them the whole business including everyone else’s margins, or no login at all and a stream of text messages and emailed invoices that somebody reconciles by hand.
Neither tells you the thing you want to know, which is whether a given contractor is worth having. MechOS treats a contractor as its own role — their jobs, their costs, their number.
How it works
Their own role, with its own walls
A contractor sees the screens they need to do the work and not the ones they don’t. Technicians on the tools are walled off from money entirely — that separation is enforced in the database, not just hidden in the menu.
Jobs sent to them
Assign work and it appears on their job list with the vehicle, the history and what the customer asked for. They start and finish it, record the kilometres, take the photos and write the notes.
Their costs, recorded against them
Contractor expenses go against the contractor, so parts and outlays are attributed to the right person rather than landing in one pile at month end.
Profit and loss per contractor
What they invoiced, what they cost, what is left — for a date range you choose. The number that answers whether the arrangement works, without exporting anything to a spreadsheet.
Their insurance, with an expiry
Public liability and workers’ cover tracked with the renewal date, alongside the rest of the workshop’s compliance. A contractor working uninsured is a problem to catch in advance.
What you get
- A contractor role with its own access
- Technicians walled off from money at the database level
- Jobs dispatched to a contractor's own screen
- Expenses attributed per contractor
- Profit and loss per contractor, per date range
- Insurance expiry tracked and alerted
- Their work on the same invoices as everyone else's
- No extra seat cost — staff are unlimited
Why it's here
Plenty of workshops run on more than employees — a diagnostic specialist two days a week, an auto electrician who takes overflow, a mobile tech who is their own business. The books usually treat all of that as one blur of subcontract cost.
Splitting it per person changes what you can decide: who to give more work to, who to renegotiate with, and which arrangement was never making money in the first place.
Questions workshops ask
What can a contractor see?
Their own jobs and their own profit and loss, and the day’s work the way a service advisor sees it. Not the company-wide reports, and not Settings. A technician never sees money; a contractor sees their own.
How is a contractor’s share worked out?
However you’ve agreed it, set per person: a percentage of labour only, of parts margin plus labour, or of parts plus labour revenue; taken before or after GST; with or without their own expenses coming off. The deal is written out in words above the figures.
How do pay runs work?
Pick the contractor and the period, and you get their completed jobs with the revenue, parts cost and their expenses against each one. Mark the jobs you’ve paid, and the next run starts where the last one finished.
Can contractors log their own expenses and leave?
Yes. Their job expenses land against the job, not in your general expenses, so a job’s true cost stays together. Leave requests come to your dashboard, and approved leave comes off the week’s capacity figures.
How-to guides
- Subcontract technicians and pay runsSet up a contractor, see what each job earned and cost, and work out what to pay them.
- Invite your team and assign rolesAdd staff, choose who can do what, and remove access when someone leaves.
See it on your own jobs
Everything on this page is included at the founding price — $99 a month, locked for as long as you stay. Fourteen days free, no card, and you can bring your existing customers and history across.