Subcontractor Portal — Guide
This guide is for you, the subcontractor. It is not written for the company that hired you.
The portal is where your people's time and expenses on our contracts are recorded, and where you hand them in at the end of each week. Recording them here is what lets the work be invoiced without waiting for your own invoice to arrive first — so the sooner a period is submitted, the sooner it moves.
Where it is: Subcontractor Portal (/accounting/subcontractor-portal).
Part 1 — How the portal thinks
The page is one period — a week, cut at the month end
The heading at the top right — "Oct 5–11, 2026" with ← and → — is not a filter. It is the frame. Everything on the page belongs to that period: the totals, the forms (which will not accept a date outside it), and the two Submit buttons.
A period runs Monday through Sunday — the same week your contact's own timesheet uses — and it also ends on the last day of every month. A week that crosses a month boundary is therefore two periods: Monday 29 – Tuesday 30 September, then Wednesday 1 – Sunday 5 October. When that happens the heading says Short period — the week is split at the month end. It is not a mistake: every period belongs to exactly one month, so a month's approved hours add up to your invoice for that month with no week straddling two of them.
Arcvue works out the period; the page only knows which day you are looking at. The arrows step to the period before or after, including across a month end.
Approval happens at the close of a period, never row by row. Nobody is approving your Tuesday on Wednesday morning; they review the period once you hand it in. Because a period is a week, your hours reach the books a week at a time rather than waiting for the whole month.
Time and expenses are two separate registers
They look alike and they are deliberately independent. Each has its own totals, its own list, and its own Submit button.
That is because a company can have its time ready while a receipt is still missing. Submit your time when the time is done. Do not hold a whole week back for one receipt.
On a contract that charges time by line, an entry that names no line will not submit, and nothing else in that period is handed in until it does. The message names the lines on offer: open the entry, pick the line, and submit again.
The four counts add up to the whole period
Each register shows Draft · Submitted · Approved · Rejected, and those four partition the period exactly. A single "12 entries" would hide the only distinction that matters: how many still need something done to them.
| Count | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Draft | Recorded but not handed in. These are what Submit sends. |
| Submitted | Handed in, awaiting review. Nothing to do. |
| Approved | Done. Deliberately quiet — it is the goal state. |
| Rejected | The only one that needs you. |
A rejected entry shows a line under the totals: "…was returned and is not counted in the total above." It is not in the total, so a period that looks complete can still be short. Find those rows in the list, read the reason printed beside them, and press Correct on the row to fix what it says — or Withdraw, if the entry should not exist at all. A corrected entry goes back for review when you next submit the period. See Changing or removing an entry below.
What you can charge to, and why the list looks the way it does
The Contract picker does not list every contract. It lists the contracts your company is staffed on, and each staffing has a window of dates it permits. That window is the authorization.
Contracts you cannot pick are still shown, with the reason:
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| A selectable contract | You may charge the chosen date to it. |
| " | Your staffing on it has not begun. Charge a date on or after that day. |
| " | A setup step is incomplete on our side. Your contact here fixes this — you cannot. |
| "No contract covers | Nothing you are staffed on permits that day. Choose another date, or ask your contact to extend the staffing. |
They are shown rather than hidden on purpose: an empty page that cannot say why it is empty leaves you guessing, and "nobody has staffed us" and "your work starts Monday" are very different problems.
If the page is empty because nobody is set up yet
Two different empty pages, and they need opposite responses.
"None of your people are set up yet." Time and expenses are always recorded against a named person, so until somebody at your company is registered here there is nothing to record against. Your contact here adds them — you cannot, and nothing you do on this page will change it. Once they do, the page fills in on its own; you do not need to be re-invited or do anything to refresh it.
That is different from "Your people could not be loaded", which means the list failed to fetch and your people are almost certainly there. The first is ask; the second is wait and reload. They look alike when you are in a hurry, which is why the wording differs.
If the page says something failed, do not enter the work again
This is the most important thing in this guide.
When a list cannot load, the portal says so plainly:
Your time for Oct 5–11, 2026 could not be loaded. This does not mean it was lost. Anything you already submitted is still saved, so do not enter it again — reload the page, and if it keeps failing, tell your contact here.
Most screens treat an empty list as an invitation to fill it in. This one deliberately does the opposite, because re-entering work that was already saved produces duplicate hours — and those hours are what our customer is billed from. The same applies to your people: "Your people could not be loaded" does not mean they are missing, and you should not ask for them to be added again.
Reload. Then ask. Never re-key.
Part 2 — How to use it
Step 1 — Check the period
Use Previous period (←) and Next period (→) beside the dates at the top to land on the week you are recording. The date fields will not accept a day outside it, so if a date is refused, check the period at the top before checking the date you typed — the page is one period at a time and the arrows are the only way to change it. At a month end the arrow steps into the short period that finishes the month, then into the one that starts the next.
Step 2 — Record time
- Date worked — the day the work happened, not the day you are keying it.
- Person — which of your people did it.
- Contract — pick one. It is a single choice; with the keyboard, arrow keys move between the options.
- Contract line (CLIN) — only appears when the contract you picked bills by line, and then it is required. The list is the lines open for time charging on that contract — and, when your client staffed this person on particular lines, only those — shown as the line number followed by what it is for. An entry on any other line is refused. Most contracts do not bill this way and show no such field.
- Where the work was done — only appears when your subcontract pays a different rate for work at the customer's site and work away from it, and then it is required. The day's cost follows this answer, so pick the one that matches where you actually worked. The choices come from the signed subcontract; if the one you need is missing, tell your Arcvue contact. Most subcontracts pay one rate wherever the work happens and show no such field.
- Hours — in quarter-hour steps.
- What was worked on — a short description, kept with the hours.
- Record time.
Changing the date clears the contract, because a different day can permit a different set of contracts. Changing the contract clears the line, because the lines belong to the contract.
If the field appears, the line is not optional. A contract whose lines are open for time charging is one where every hour is meant to land on a line, so the entry is refused without one and the refusal lists the lines on offer. If you believe a line is missing from the list, it has not been opened for time charging, or this person is not staffed on it — tell whoever administers the contract rather than picking the nearest one.
Step 3 — Record expenses
- Date of expense — the date on the receipt.
- Person, Contract — as above.
- Amount — dollars and cents, matching the receipt.
- Who it was paid to — the airline, hotel, supplier or other party.
- Record expense.
Then add the receipt from the list below, not from the form. Receipts are attached after the cost is keyed because a receipt legitimately arrives later than the expense, and because a receipt is required for some amounts and not others.
Any expense that still needs one shows "Needs a receipt — add one" in amber. Click it and pick a PDF, PNG or JPEG.
Once an expense is approved, the attach control disappears. Attaching a receipt late is ordinary; swapping the document a reviewer already approved against is a different act, so the portal offers no control rather than a button that would always fail. If a receipt genuinely needs replacing after approval, ask your contact here.
Step 4 — Submit the period
Submit Oct 5–11, 2026 time and Submit Oct 5–11, 2026 expenses are separate buttons and each is enabled only while that register has Draft entries. Submitting covers the period on screen; the week before and the week after are their own submissions.
If a button is grayed out, you have nothing in draft — either everything is already submitted, or nothing has been recorded.
Submitting does not lock you out of the period: anything returned comes back to you with the reviewer's reason, and Correct fixes it in place.
If you save days and never send them, Arcvue reminds you. Once a period has closed and its due date has passed, every login on your company gets one email a day naming every such period — "Oct 1-4 and Oct 5-11, 2026" when two are waiting — with how many saved days from how many people are still waiting, and any day the reviewer returned for a correction. The email stops the day the last saved day is sent. It is sent to the address on your login, so a company whose logins carry no address hears nothing; ask whoever administers your company's access to add one.
Changing or removing an entry
Each time entry you have saved but not yet submitted carries two controls at the end of its line:
- Edit opens the entry in place — the hours, the line (when the contract has lines), Where the work was done (when your subcontract pays on site and off site differently) and what was done — and Save keeps the change. The same rules apply as when you recorded it: more than zero hours, at most a day, and a line when lines exist.
- Remove deletes a saved entry. It asks once more (Remove this entry?) before it acts. Use it for a day entered twice or saved by mistake.
An entry your reviewer returned carries Correct and Withdraw instead. Correct opens it for the fix; Save correction keeps it, and it goes back for review when you next Submit the period — the reviewer's reason stays beside it, and the reviewer sees it was corrected after a return. Withdraw is for a returned entry that is wrong in kind — a day entered twice — and has no correction: it asks once more (Withdraw this entry?), then takes the entry back. Nothing is lost quietly: who returned it, why, and who withdrew it are kept on record even though the entry leaves your list.
Once an entry is submitted it carries neither control. To change it, ask your contact here to return it.
Saved, not submitted. When the period holds saved entries that have not been sent, a notice above the list says how many and offers Submit … time right there. The reviewer sees only submitted time, so a day that is saved and never submitted is a day nobody has reviewed. Nobody submits on your behalf.
Part 3 — When something looks wrong
"These hours are already recorded for that day (entry N)" — you entered the same contract, hours and note twice for one date. Edit the entry it names rather than adding another; the second one was the first one typed again. A different note on the same date is a different piece of work and is taken.
"… is more than a day holds" — your entries for that date would total more than twenty-four hours. Correct the day; the reviewer sees the day's total beside every entry.
Two messages about people look alike and mean opposite things. None of their people are set up yet is the true state of an empty roster — nothing is broken and nobody has been added. Their people could not be loaded means the list failed to arrive, so the roster may not be empty at all. Only the second is a reason to retry.
| What you see | What it means → what to do |
|---|---|
| "This portal has no company for your login", and the message says your login has not been linked to a company yet | Your sign-in exists and the second half of the setup has not happened yet. This is not a failure and not a missing permission. You cannot fix it from your side — send that message to your contact here, and an administrator finishes it under Subcontractors. |
| "This portal has no company for your login", and the message says your access to this portal has ended | Your access was switched off deliberately. Nothing you submitted has been removed — the record of it stays with the company that hired you. If it was switched off by mistake, ask your contact here to restore it. |
| "Nobody is staffed on a contract yet" | No staffing has been set up for your company. Your contact here does this; the page fills in on its own once they do. |
| "None of your people are set up yet" | Your company is staffed, but no named person has been registered. Time and expenses are always recorded against a named person, so nothing can be entered until they are. Ask your contact here. |
| "This portal could not be loaded" | The page could not read which company your login belongs to. A load failure, not a verdict on your access -- nothing about your login has changed. Reload; if it keeps happening, tell your contact here. |
| "Your people could not be loaded" | A load failure, not a missing roster. Anyone already registered is still there. Reload; do not ask for them again. |
| "Your time / expenses for | Same: a load failure, not a lost period. Do not re-enter anything. Reload, then tell your contact if it persists. |
| An entry says "Returned — …" | It was returned and the reason is printed right there. Correct opens it to fix what the reason names; Withdraw takes it back if it should not exist at all. It is not in your period total until it is approved. |
| "Approved without a receipt on file" | The expense was approved, but no receipt is attached. Get the receipt to your contact here — approval is not the same as having the document on file. |
| The Submit button is grayed out | Nothing is in Draft in that register. Check the counts: if everything reads Submitted or Approved, you are done. |
| "Record time" stays disabled | Person, contract or hours is empty, or the contract bills by line and no Contract line (CLIN) is chosen. |
| "Your subcontract pays a different rate for work done on site and off site — say which these hours were." | Where the work was done is still blank. Choose On site or Off site, then Record time again. |
| A contract I expect is missing from the picker | Check the date first — the picker only offers contracts whose staffing window covers the day you chose. If it shows as "starts |
Part 4 — Who else can see this
Staff at the company that hired you can open this same page and read what your people have entered. They pick your company from a Viewing control at the top, and from there the screen is the one you are looking at now — the same period, the same counts, the same lists.
They cannot record anything as you. The forms for recording time and expenses, and both Submit buttons, are not there for them. Entering the work and handing in the period stay yours, so a submitted period is always something your company stood behind. What they can do is approve or return an entry once it is submitted, which is the review you are handing it in for.
Approving covers the period; returning is one entry at a time, or the whole period at once. Approving says the period is right. A return always says why, because you cannot act on one that does not:
- One entry. Against that row the reviewer opens Why this entry is being returned and writes the reason, naming which day is wrong and why.
- The whole period. Return … submitted entries opens Why this period is being returned, and Return period hands back everything you submitted for the period with that one reason. The reviewer uses it when the same thing is wrong across the week.
Nothing is sent while the field is empty, and Cancel closes it without sending anything, so a half-typed thought never reaches you. The words the reviewer writes are exactly what you read back as Returned — … in your own list, which is why it reads like a person talking to you rather than a code.
A returned entry comes back to you. Returning clears the submission on that row and leaves the rest of the period alone, so you Correct the day the reviewer named and hand it in again. Nothing else you already submitted has to wait for it.
What they see before they pick anyone. Until a company is chosen the page shows Awaiting review — every entry any company has submitted that nobody has approved or returned yet, each with the day's total when one person recorded more than once for a date, and the name of the person set to approve it. Where no approver is named, the entry routes to the controller, and the fix is on the staffing, not on your entry. Where the reviewer is the person set to approve an entry, its line carries Approve and Return, the same two verbs as inside your period; otherwise it carries Open, which reads that company's portal in full. Below the queue it says Choose a company to read its portal. The queue is the only place that reads across firms, and it reads only what has been handed in.
Contracts they may charge against. Once they open your portal, staff see a list under that heading: every contract your people are staffed on, with the window that permits it — the same staffing that decides what you can pick in your own Contract control. You see it as a picker because you are choosing; they see it as a list because they are not. If a contract you expect is missing there, it is missing for you too, and the fix is the same one: ask your contact here to extend the staffing.
Nothing about this is new access — it is the same review that has always happened at the close of a period. It is written down here because a screen that other people can read should say so.
One-line summary
Record your people's time and expenses against the contracts your company is staffed on, a week at a time (split at the month end), then submit each register separately — the four counts tell you what still needs you (Rejected is the only one that does), a contract you cannot pick always says why, and when the page reports a failure it is telling you not to re-enter the work, because duplicates are what get billed.