Two systems for the same forty people
Your social enterprise delivers part of a larger programme, such as an employment support contract, a health and wellbeing service or a skills programme, as a subcontractor to a prime provider. The prime holds the contract with the commissioner. You hold the relationship with the participants.
Your advisers record everything in your own system: referrals, appointments, action plans, progress, outcomes. Then, every week, someone logs into the prime's portal and enters the same information again, in the prime's fields, with the prime's codes. Evidence such as signed forms, ID checks and outcome proof has to be uploaded to the prime by a deadline, or the claim for that participant is rejected. A new data manager at the prime changes the spreadsheet layout mid-year, and your team finds out when the upload is rejected.
Why subcontractor admin doubles up
The prime needs consistent data from several subcontractors so it can report to the commissioner and claim payment. Subcontractors need their own records to run the service. Neither system was designed for the other.
| What you record | What the prime wants | Why it is re-keyed |
|---|---|---|
| Your own participant ID | The prime's reference | No shared identifier |
| Your own activity categories | The prime's codes | Categories do not match |
| Evidence filed on your drive | Evidence uploaded to their portal | Separate upload per document |
| Outcomes when they happen | Outcomes by the prime's claim cut-off | Different deadlines |
Payment often depends on it. Subcontract payments may be tied to starts, attendance or outcomes, with evidence required for each. The terms of your subcontract and the evidence rules are for you, the prime and the commissioner. We do not interpret them.
What double entry costs
Adviser time is the first cost. Hours each week go into retyping and uploading instead of working with participants. Errors creep in between the two systems, and reconciling them before a claim is tedious.
Missed claims are the costly one. An outcome that is not evidenced in the prime's system by the cut-off may not be paid. Rejected uploads that nobody notices mean payment that never arrives.
Relationships suffer too. A subcontractor whose data is always late or messy becomes one the prime is less keen to renew.
One record, many outputs
What we build keeps your own record as the place where work is recorded, and generates what the prime needs from it.
- Participant records in your system hold the prime's reference and any codes the prime needs, set once at referral.
- Your activity and outcome categories are mapped to the prime's codes, so staff record in the terms they understand and the export translates.
- Returns are generated in the prime's format, whether a spreadsheet template, a CSV upload or an API where the prime provides one, ready for a person to check and submit.
- Evidence documents are stored against the participant with a type, and the system lists which evidence the prime still needs for each claimable event.
- Claim cut-off dates are held in the system, and advisers see which participants have outcomes due for evidence before each cut-off.
- When the prime changes a template or code list, the mapping is updated in one place.
If the prime's portal allows only manual entry, we produce a clear entry sheet so the typing is quick and accurate, and record what has been submitted.
A claim week, afterwards
The Monday before the prime's claim deadline, the contract manager opens the claim list: nine participants with outcomes this period, seven with complete evidence, two missing a signed declaration. Their advisers have already been reminded. By Wednesday all nine are complete.
The upload file is generated in the prime's current format. The contract manager checks it, submits it, and marks it submitted. When the prime reports a query on one participant, the record and evidence are on screen in seconds.
Is subcontracting creating double work for you?
- Advisers enter the same participant data in two systems.
- The prime's template changes and uploads get rejected.
- Evidence is uploaded one document at a time before deadlines.
- Some outcomes miss the claim cut-off.
- Your records and the prime's disagree and nobody knows which is right.