Price the Subcontract, Not Just the Scope
Every sentence in a subcontract is a risk line item, and most subbies price only the scope. In an ideal world you'd read every word at tender and price clauses like LDs the way you price labour and materials. Nobody has that time, which is why I built the free Subcontract Risk Scanner: two minutes, every key risk, and a split between what to negotiate, what to price, what to manage and what to leave. Price the contract where you must, negotiate it where you must.
Transcript
You see, in an ideal world, you've priced for the subcontract. Only the scope of work, but you've read every word of that subcontract that that builder gave you at tender time, which would then become the subcontract that your scope included with and that deemed that project the package overall. An ideal world, if everything went 100 % the way it should be, the subbie would have read every word of that subcontract and priced for each item, even clauses like LDs and priced for that risk accordingly.
Because line items, the sentences in a subcontract is essentially risk and what you are pricing is you take on scope, price for the material, the items, the label, whatever it happens to be, but at times you add in a contingency for the risk. The subcontract is no different and it is very important to assess it exactly like that, like it is a scope item, understand what you're signing up to that's how a lot of the builders get away with screwing down the subbie because they know, and yes, in the real world, no subbie has the time to read those words, why I built the subcontract risk scanner.
Not me selling you, that's just one of the core reasons why I built it because no subbie has the resources or commercial firepower to read every word of that subcontract for all the tenders that they're doing, for ones they might not even win. My tool, which is free, linked down there if you want to use it, within two minutes, out all the key identifies a what you should negotiate because some of them you genuinely can't price and you need to negotiate them b which ones to price which ones to manage internally which ones to leave it as it is which fall under your insurance that you have a clear picture of guess delivering and how you can deliver a more competitive quote then hopefully win more tenders because when you are clear on what's being priced and what risk you're able to take on without
just signing up for risk without pricing for it, you are in a much better position to not throw your company away when it turns into a dispute downstream just because you didn't read the contract and price for it accordingly. Please keep that in mind in the future for future tenders that you may quote on. The subcontract where you must negotiate it where you must as well. Two core things.
Subcontract risk scanner down below. Any questions if you have any feedback you want to give me or let me know any feedback to include in my next update of the scanner which I do update regularly based on subby feedback real users me know because your feedback is valuable for me to make the tool more valuable for you so for watching drop me a subscribe if you enjoyed watching this and this was helpful to you I will see you in the next video cheers
General information about Australian subcontracts, not legal advice. Get advice on your own contract and facts.