A subcontractor uploads a certificate of insurance and the compliance calendar immediately shows the carrier, the policy number, the coverage limits, and the exact date the certificate lapses. Thirty days before that date the vendor gets chased automatically, and nobody on your side has to remember anything.
The app embedded on this page is the ApplyTrack App, a real Taskade Genesis build you can open right now. It tracks submitted records through statuses, which is the bones of a compliance register but not yet one: click "Use this app" to clone it in about ten seconds, then add the vendor upload page, the expiry date column, and the reading step described below.
Concretely: a Vendors Project holds one row per company, and a Certificates Project holds one row per document, kept as connected records so a vendor with three policies still reads as one vendor. A published upload page takes vendor name, policy type, and a File field. Certificates arrive as typed PDFs from a broker and as phone photos of a faxed page from a small operator, so the Convert File to Text step handles both without a sort. An Ask Agent step returns insured name, carrier, policy number, policy type, effective date, expiry date, each coverage limit, and the certificate holder as named fields. Expiry becomes a real date column, which is the whole point: a date column can drive a calendar and a reminder, a PDF in a folder cannot.
The compliance picture renders where it is useful:
- Calendar view to see every expiry laid out across the year
- Table view for the full register with vendor, carrier, limits, and status
- Board view to move vendors through Compliant, Expiring, and Lapsed
- Plus List, Mind Map, Gantt, and Org Chart across the 7 project views
Automations do the chasing you keep forgetting. With Taskade automations, a certificate thirty days from expiry emails the vendor a renewal request with the upload link, posts to your operations channel in Slack, and escalates to the contract owner if nothing arrives in two weeks. A vendor whose certificate has lapsed is flagged before a crew shows up on site. Across 100+ bidirectional integrations, Gmail and webhooks pull certificates in while Slack, email, and calendar push the chasing out. The AI agents in the app carry 34 built-in tools with persistent memory, so an agent can answer "which vendors are short on general liability limits" against your own register.
Write down your requirement matrix before you collect a single certificate: which cover types each vendor category must carry, and at what limits. A roofing subcontractor and a software supplier do not need the same pack, and encoding that as data means the app can tell you who is short rather than just who has uploaded. Then load the certificates you already hold so the calendar starts full. The first month is the only slow one. After that the renewal automation carries it, and the only manual work left is the handful of certificates that arrive as a photograph of a fax and need a human to confirm the expiry.
Clone the app, invite operations and procurement, and the register, the certificates, and the reminder rules are yours.
Read the upload behavior in File Uploads in Your App, the format list in Read Scanned Paperwork and Photos, and the reminder mechanics in Automation Triggers. Shape the register with Databases in Projects, browse live builds in the Community Gallery, or start from a base in the templates library. Pair this with Build a Contract Register From Signed Agreements so a vendor contract and its insurance sit side by side, and Collect W-9 and Vendor Tax Forms Without Chasing to finish the onboarding pack.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can it read a certificate that arrives as a fax or a photo of one?
Yes. Faxed and photographed certificates are images of a page, and reading words off an image is exactly what the Convert File to Text step does. A crisp broker PDF is read straight through. Both end up as the same set of named fields.
How reliable is the expiry date extraction?
The date is the single most important field, so ask for it explicitly and ask the agent to leave it blank when the page is ambiguous. A blank expiry holds the vendor in a Needs Review lane, which is far safer than a confident wrong date silently marking someone compliant.
Can it check coverage limits against my requirements?
Yes. State your minimums in the prompt, for example general liability of one million per occurrence, and the agent compares what it read against those numbers and flags shortfalls. A person still confirms before you rely on it for a contractual requirement.
How do vendors upload without an account?
Send them the published form link. If you would rather every certificate arrive attached to a named signed-in vendor, turn on app sign-in through App Users. On Business plans and above the whole portal can sit on your own domain.
What triggers the renewal chase?
An automation watching the expiry date column. Thirty days out it emails the vendor and creates a task, and you can add a second escalation if the new certificate has not arrived by a set number of days later.
Where is the actual certificate stored?
Attached to its own row and in your workspace Media tab. When an auditor or a general contractor asks for proof you send the original document, not a transcription of it.
Do I need a paid plan to run the reminders?
To run them continuously, yes. Free includes 10 flow runs in total, which is enough to build and test the whole path end to end. Pro is $10 per month billed annually, and custom domains for a branded vendor portal start on Business.
What if a vendor sends a certificate for the wrong entity?
Ask for the insured name as a named field and compare it against the vendor record. A mismatch is flagged rather than filed, which catches the common case of a parent company certificate arriving for a subsidiary you actually contracted with.
