Facilities teams often dispatch dozens of vendors a week with no live view of insurance status. An OCR-tracked certificate registry wired into dispatch blocks lapsed vendors automatically and chases renewals a month ahead, so every vendor on site is insured.
Typical results
120
Vendors under live tracking
30 days
Renewal chase head start
9 hrs/mo
Compliance admin saved
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
One uninsured plumber flooding an apartment could expose the company to the full damages. Yet vendor certificates lived in email attachments and a stale spreadsheet — an internal audit found nearly one in five active vendors had an expired certificate or license on file. Nobody checked before dispatching a job, because checking meant twenty minutes of digging.
Before and after
Vendors with lapsed documents
−100%Renewal chase lead time
Compliance admin
−90%The automation
Every certificate a vendor sends is OCR-read for insurer, coverage amounts, and expiry date, then filed in a live compliance registry covering all 120 vendors. Thirty days before anything lapses, the vendor gets automatic WhatsApp and email chases that escalate until a fresh document arrives. The dispatch flow checks the registry before every assignment — a lapsed vendor is simply unselectable, and the coordinator sees compliant alternates instead.
How it works
- 01
Certificate in
A vendor emails a COI or license; OCR reads the insurer, coverage amounts, and expiry date.
- 02
Live registry
Every vendor's compliance status sits in one registry the dispatch flow can query in real time.
- 03
Auto-chase
Thirty days before expiry, WhatsApp and email reminders chase the vendor until a fresh document arrives.
- 04
Hard gate
Dispatch checks the registry before every assignment — lapsed vendors are unselectable, compliant alternates suggested.
- 05
Audit trail
Each certificate is versioned and filed against the vendor, so the audit binder builds itself.
Starts from
- Vendor certificates & licenses
- Work order requests
Delivers
- Only compliant vendors dispatched
- Renewal chases 30 days out
- Audit-ready vendor file
The impact
Every vendor dispatched to a property carries valid insurance and licenses, where an eighteen percent lapse rate is common before the gate. Most vendors renew before their old certificate expires, compliance admin typically falls from ten hours a month to one, and the audit binder builds itself.
Questions about this automation
How does the automation read a vendor's insurance certificate?
When a vendor emails a certificate of insurance or a license, OCR reads the insurer, the coverage amounts and the expiry date. The values are checked against the minimum coverage the property manager requires and saved to the vendor's record in the compliance registry, with the original file versioned alongside it.
What stops a coordinator from sending an uninsured vendor to a job?
The dispatch flow queries the registry before every assignment. A vendor with an expired or missing certificate cannot be selected, and the coordinator sees a list of compliant vendors for the same trade instead. Once a fresh certificate is read and passes the checks, the vendor becomes available again automatically.
How are upcoming expiries handled before they block dispatch?
Thirty days before a certificate or license lapses, the vendor receives a WhatsApp message and an email with an upload link. Reminders repeat and escalate to the facilities lead if nothing arrives. This is a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages, starting with the registry and adding the dispatch gate after.