Reporting Hours and Costs on Your Phone — Subcontractor Guide
This guide is for you, the subcontractor. It is not written for the company that hired you. Short version: the app reports for your whole team, so it is organized by person first — you pick who worked, then what they worked on.
For: anyone at your company who reports hours or costs · Time: ~8 minutes · You'll need: the Arcvue mobile app and the portal login your client set up for you.
How to access
Sign in to the Arcvue mobile app with your portal login. It opens on Subcontractor, your tab in the bottom tab bar, and a link into one of the client company's own screens brings you back to it.
That tab appears only for a portal login. If you sign in and do not see it, your account has not been connected to your company's portal record yet — ask your contact at the client company, not us.
The web portal covers the same ground on a larger screen and adds review and history. This guide is the phone; the Subcontractor Portal guide is the web.
Part 1 — The one idea that matters most
It is organized by person, not by job.
An employee's timesheet is implicitly about one person, so it is arranged by what they charged to. You are a company reporting for several people, so the person comes first and the contract second. Every entry starts with who.
That is why the flow asks Who worked before it asks anything else, and why the list groups what you have reported by person rather than by contract.
Your hours do not go on the client's timesheet
They go into your company's own record, and that separation is deliberate and permanent. Your people are not the client's employees, and reporting their time as though they were would misrepresent the relationship — for both sides.
So nothing you enter here appears in the client's employee timekeeping, and that is correct. If you have ever wondered why you are not simply given a timesheet, that is the reason.
Part 2 — Reading the screen
The tab has two segments. Tap either to switch:
| Segment | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Hours | time your people worked |
| Costs | money your people spent that the client is to reimburse |
One period at a time
Your hours and costs are handed in one week at a time. A period runs Monday through Sunday, except where a month ends inside a week: then the week is cut at the month end, and each part is its own period. For example, the week of Monday, September 28 becomes Sep 28 – 30 and Oct 1 – 4. That way every period belongs to one month, and a month's approved hours add up to what you invoice for it.
The screen opens on the period holding today, named at the top under This period; on any other period the label reads Earlier period or Later period instead. When the period is one of those short ones, a line under the dates says the month end split the week — that is expected, not a mistake.
Use the arrows either side of the dates to move between periods: the left arrow (screen readers hear Earlier period) and the right arrow (Later period). Both segments, Hours and Costs, follow the period you are on. When you are on any period other than today's, Back to this week appears under the dates and takes you straight back.
You record for today, so recording happens on today's period. On an earlier or later period, Record hours and Record a cost are not shown; you can still read, correct, withdraw and send what is there.
Returned entries come first, and they are the only ones needing you
If the client sent something back for correction, it sits at the top with the reason they gave. Those rows are the only ones that require anybody to do anything, so they lead the screen rather than sitting in a history you would have to go looking for. Tap one (screen readers hear Fix the returned entry) to open its correction; it ends in Correct or withdraw, the same as its row in the list below.
Returned entries are not counted in the period total. That is intentional — they are not yet part of what you are reporting. When the period on screen holds one, a line under the total says so. Expect the total to go up when you fix one and send the period again. An entry that should not exist at all — a day entered twice — is withdrawn instead (Part 3).
When there is nothing yet
The screen says "Nothing recorded for this period yet" and tells you to record hours for one of your people to get started. That is an empty period, not a problem. On an earlier period it says "Nothing was recorded for this period" instead.
Part 3 — Recording hours
Tap Record hours for one of your people — the button reads Record hours.
Three fields, in this order, and up to two more on the few contracts and agreements that need them:
- Who worked — the person from your team.
- On which contract — what they worked on.
- On which contract line — only appears when the contract you picked records hours by line, and then it is required: Record hours stays off until you choose one. The list is the lines your client opened for time charging on that contract — and, when your client staffed this person on particular lines, only those. Choosing a different person clears a line the new person may not charge. If none of that person's lines is open that day, the screen says No line is open to them on this contract; your contact at the prime can open one. Most contracts do not work this way and show no such field.
- Where the work was done — only appears when that person's subcontract pays a different rate onsite and offsite for their work, and then it is required: choose Onsite or Offsite, and Record hours stays off until you do. Most agreements pay one rate wherever the work happens and show no such field.
- Hours worked — the hours, to one decimal.
If one person worked on two lines of the same contract on the same day, record each line as its own entry — and the same for a day split between onsite and offsite work: one entry for each. Changing the contract clears the line you picked, so a line from one contract is never sent against another.
Your company's name sits at the top of the form so you can see at a glance whose record you are adding to.
Only the people and contracts you are actually engaged on are offered. If someone is missing from Who worked, or a contract is missing from On which contract, that is a setup question for your contact at the client company — picking the nearest alternative creates a correction for somebody later.
Correcting hours you have already recorded
While an entry is still yours — not sent yet, or sent back — its row in the hours list is a button. A row not sent yet ends in Correct or remove; a row sent back ends in Correct or withdraw. Under the contract, each row says where the entry stands: Not sent yet, With the reviewer, Sent back or Approved, the same words the Costs list uses. Tap the row to open Correct these hours. Once the entry is with the reviewer or approved, the row is no longer a button.
A correction changes the hours, the contract line and where the work was done, nothing else. The person, the contract and the day stay as they were recorded, and the screen shows them rather than offering them. If an entry was sent back, a Sent back box sits at the top with the reviewer's reason. Tap Save correction; only what you changed is sent. A corrected entry goes back to the reviewer the next time you send the period (Part 6), and the reviewer sees it was corrected after a return, beside the reason they gave. An entry recorded before its agreement priced onsite and offsite apart is asked Where the work was done when you correct it, and saves once you answer.
Removing or withdrawing an entry
A day saved twice, or hours recorded for the wrong person, contract or day, is taken back and the right one recorded. Typing 0 hours does not do it — the app asks for more than zero. Which button you get depends on where the entry stands.
Not sent yet: remove it. Open the entry and tap Remove this entry at the bottom of the screen. The app asks you to confirm, naming the hours, the person and the day, because a removal cannot be undone. Keep it backs out with nothing changed; Remove takes the entry away (screen readers hear it as Remove this entry for good), and the hours list no longer shows it. Nobody had seen it, so nothing is kept.
Sent back: correct it, or withdraw it. Most returned entries are corrected (above). Withdraw is for one that is wrong in kind and has no correction — a day entered twice, or hours under the wrong person. Open it and tap Withdraw this entry. The app asks you to confirm; Withdraw (screen readers hear Withdraw this returned entry) takes it off your list, and it is not sent again. The app then stays on Entry withdrawn, naming the hours, the person and the day, until you tap Back — so you can see it went, rather than watching it disappear. Who returned it, why, and that you withdrew it are kept on record.
With the reviewer, or approved: neither. An entry with the reviewer is theirs until they act — ask them to send it back, then correct or withdraw it. An approved entry is part of your company's record.
If the entry changed after you opened it — someone at your company sent the period from the web, or the reviewer acted on it — the app says That entry was not removed (or That entry was not withdrawn) and gives the reason in the client's own words. If someone already took it back, the app says That entry is no longer there. Either way, go back and the list shows where the entry stands now.
Part 4 — Recording a cost
From the Costs segment, add a cost. Five fields:
- Who spent it — the person from your team who paid.
- On which contract — what it was spent on.
- Amount — labeled Amount in dollars for screen readers.
- Merchant — who was paid.
- What it was for — optional, and worth filling in anyway. See below.
"What it was for" is optional and you should write it
The field is not required, so the app will let you skip it. Don't. Somebody at the client company reviews this and decides whether it is reimbursable, and "client dinner, quarterly program review" gets approved while "dinner" comes back to you. Writing one line now is faster than answering a question later.
If it was a meal, turn on This cost was a meal
A meal is the one cost that needs more than a receipt behind it. A business meal is only deductible if the record says who ate and why, and a receipt says neither. So the app asks you at the moment you record the cost, rather than someone at the client company asking you months later when nobody remembers.
The toggle is off by default. Turning it on adds three answers, all required:
- How many people ate — everybody at the table, your own person included.
- Who attended — one name per line. Add another person gives you the next line, and the blank line at the bottom is the offer of one, not an attendee.
- Business purpose of the meal — what the meal was for, in a line. "Kickoff with the prime" is enough. "Dinner" is not.
You may name fewer people than ate, and at a big table you should. A twelve-person program review names the group — "program review attendees" — rather than twelve individuals, and that saves. What will not save is the other direction: more names than heads, because three names against a head count of two is a record nobody can read.
Until all three are answered, Record cost stays dimmed and will not press. That is the app holding the line, not a fault.
Correcting a meal keeps its answers. Open the cost again and the head count, the names and the purpose are already filled in — change the one that was wrong and save. You do not retype the other two.
Part 5 — Attaching a receipt
Open a cost you have recorded and tap Photograph the receipt. After the shot, Retake replaces it — do use it when the photo is blurry or cropped, because nobody downstream is going to read the amount off it for you.
This does not read the receipt for you. The client's own employees have a capture screen that extracts the merchant and amount from a photograph; yours deliberately does not, because your costs belong to a different record for the same worker-classification reason as your hours. You type the fields; the photograph is the evidence behind them.
Two practical notes:
- Photograph it in reasonable light and get the whole receipt in frame. Nothing is reading it automatically, so a human will be, and an unreadable photograph comes back as a question.
- Large photographs are handled for you. The app shrinks the image before sending, so a full-resolution phone photo will not fail on a weak signal. If the client's system still refuses one, it will say why.
Correcting a cost you have already recorded
Each cost in the list carries what it is for and what state it is in. While a cost is still yours it shows one button: Correct or remove when it is not sent yet, Correct or withdraw when it was sent back. Once it is with the reviewer or approved, that button is gone. If it was sent back, the correction screen opens with a Sent back box carrying the reviewer's reason.
Correct changes three fields, not six. You can change the Amount, the Merchant and what it was for. You cannot change who spent it, which contract it was against, or the date — those are fixed when the cost is first recorded, and the correction screen does not offer them.
So a cost recorded against the wrong person, the wrong contract or the wrong date is taken back, not repaired, and you record a fresh cost with the right person, contract and date:
- Not sent yet: open it and tap Remove this cost. The app asks you to confirm, naming the amount, the date and the merchant; Keep it backs out, and Remove (screen readers hear Remove this cost for good) takes it away. Nobody had seen it, so nothing is kept.
- Sent back: open it and tap Withdraw this cost, then Withdraw (screen readers hear Withdraw this returned cost). It leaves your list and is not sent again; the app stays on Cost withdrawn, naming what went, until you tap Back. Who returned it, why, and that you withdrew it are kept on record. A receipt you attached is kept too.
- With the reviewer: ask them to send it back, then correct or withdraw it.
If the cost changed after you opened it, the app says That cost was not removed or That cost was not withdrawn, with the client's reason; if it is already gone, That cost is no longer there.
Check those three before you send a period — they are the only fields that are cheap to get right and expensive to get wrong.
The button for a new cost is labeled Record a cost for one of your people and reads Record a cost; the one on a cost that still needs its receipt is Attach a receipt to this cost and reads Add receipt.
Part 6 — Sending it for review
The send button sends the period on screen, and only that period. It counts what it will send there: entries not sent yet and entries sent back that are waiting to go again, so it reads, for example, Send 3 entries for review. To send an earlier week, move to it with the arrows first. Hours and costs are sent separately. After a send the screen says what went, in the client's own count — for example "Sent 3 entries for review, including 1 corrected after a return."
When there is nothing outstanding to submit, the screen says "Nothing to send for review" — that is a clean state, not an error.
Once the client has your entries they review them, and anything they disagree with comes back as a returned row with a reason. Correct it and send the period again, or withdraw it if it should not exist. Nothing is lost and you do not start over.
Part 7 — When something looks wrong
You do not see a Subcontractor tab. Your login is not connected to your company's portal record. Ask your contact at the client company.
You see a message saying your account records time on your own timesheet. You are signed in with an internal account at the client company rather than a portal login. This screen is not for that account, and Go to your timesheet takes you to the one that is.
A person or a contract is missing from a picker. You are not set up for it. That is a setup question for your contact — do not substitute something close.
The line you need is not in the list. Only lines your client opened for time charging are offered, and only those the person is staffed on when your client limited them. Ask your contact to open it, or to staff the person on it, rather than recording the hours on a different line.
You saved the same day twice. Open the extra entry and tap Remove this entry if it has not been sent, or Withdraw this entry if the reviewer sent it back. See Part 3. The same goes for a cost recorded twice (Part 5).
A total looks low. Check whether anything is sitting in returned; returned entries are deliberately not counted until they are corrected and sent again.
Something you sent came back and you disagree with the reason. Take it up with your contact at the client company. The app carries the reason; it does not arbitrate it.
Related
- Subcontractor Portal — the web surface: the same reporting plus review and history on a larger screen.