Everyone tells you to check references. Nobody tells you what to do with the answers.
You have three names and a phone. You make the calls, and all three say some version of “yeah, they were great.” You hang up knowing roughly what you knew before, and you sign.
That is not because you asked badly. It is because three separate conversations, each drifting wherever it drifted, produce three things that cannot be laid beside each other. The first reference talked about the crew. The second talked about the price. The third talked about how it all ended. Every one of them was useful, and together they told you nothing you could act on, because you have no way of seeing what they would have said about the same question.
This file is built around that one problem.
Six questions, asked the same way, every time
Every reference you reach answers the same six probes. They are worded once, for all five vetting types, and they always point the same direction — Yes is the good answer on all six, so nothing has to be mentally flipped later:
- Can you confirm roughly when they worked with you, and what they were responsible for?
- Knowing everything you know now, would you use them again?
- Did things happen roughly when they said they would?
- Did the final cost land where you expected, or were there surprises?
- When something went wrong, how did they handle it?
- Is there anything you would want to know if you were in my position?
Because the wording never changes, the answers become comparable — and once they are comparable, a spreadsheet can do something no reference form can. It counts the probes where one reference gave you a positive answer and another gave you a concern.
That number is the point. Three references agreeing tells you one thing. Three references disagreeing tells you something far more useful: exactly which question to go back and ask again, of somebody else.
And “Wouldn’t say” is an answer. A reference who confirms the dates without hesitating and then goes quiet — twice — when you ask about money has told you something specific. The sheet counts it as a concern, because it is one.
The check that passes and still leaves you uncovered
Now the other half, and it is the part almost every guide gets wrong.
Everyone tells you to check that the license is active and the insurance is current. So you do. The certificate arrives, the dates are printed on it, everything is in force, and you tick it off.
Nobody tells you to check it against the day your work ends.
A general liability policy that is genuinely valid the morning you check it, and genuinely expires two weeks before the roof is finished, passes every check ever written down. It also leaves you uninsured for the last fortnight of the job — which, if you have ever had a job run long, is precisely when the expensive discoveries happen.
So the Verification Ledger does not compare an expiry date to today. It compares it to the date you entered as your finish date, and reports the answer in words:
- Covers your dates — verified, and still valid on the day you are done.
- LAPSES MID-JOB — in force right now, expired before you finish, with the number of days you are short.
- Already expired, or Not verified yet — no ambiguity about which.
- No expiry to track — verified, and nothing to lapse: a deed, a degree, a permit already pulled.
- Set a work-through date — the one it cannot answer, because you have not told it when you finish. It says so rather than guessing.
It is one column. It is also the single most useful thing in the file, and it costs you nothing but writing the expiry date down.
Required for a roofer is not required for a nanny
Twenty-three things are worth verifying about somebody, and no one person needs all of them. A contractor needs a trade license, general liability, workers’ compensation, a business registration and a permit in their own name. A care provider needs identity, right to work, a background check run properly, a driving record if they will be driving, and a CPR certification that is very often quietly out of date. A landlord needs ownership of record — that the person collecting your deposit is actually entitled to.
So the completeness figure counts required items for that type of person, not a generic list. A full bar means you have done the things that matter here, rather than most of a checklist written for someone else’s situation.
Each item comes with where to check it and how to check it properly: the certificate of insurance sent by the agent directly to you rather than a PDF forwarded by the contractor, the license searched by number rather than by name, the employer’s main number you looked up yourself rather than the one written on the application.
What you get
Nine tabs. Everyone you are currently checking on the Subjects tab, computing their own reference agreement, concern count and verification completeness. The 120-question Question Bank, filterable to your type. A Reference Log with the six probes. Answer Notes that look up the question text from its ID, so you are writing against the question you actually asked. The Verification Ledger. A curated Required Items matrix. A Dashboard that takes one subject in depth. And a Glossary for the words on the paperwork — including the three people routinely use to mean the wrong thing: additional insured is not certificate holder, a bond is not insurance, and a reference is not a referral.
Plus 83 pages of printable guides across five PDFs — including four blank call sheets to take to the call — and a sixth, shorter PDF whose only job is the one-click link to the native Google Sheets copy.
It arrives pre-filled with a worked example — three fictional subjects, already called and verified — so you can see every number doing its job before you clear it and start on your own.
Try it free first
There is a free, ungated printable of the contractor questions — the 24 Contractor Reference-Check Questions, with what each one is testing, what a reassuring answer sounds like, and what should worry you, plus a call sheet and a worked example. No email, no signup. It is one vetting type out of five, and a printed list can only hold questions; the workbook is what compares the answers and checks the dates.
What it is not
It is structured verification. It is not legal advice, and it is not a background-check service. It runs no searches, holds no records, and makes no determination about anybody. It gives you the questions and somewhere disciplined to put the answers.
Screening is regulated, and the rules genuinely differ by country, state and city — what you may ask, what you may consider, what consent you need in writing first, and what you must do if you turn someone down because of what a report said. Before you run a background, credit or driving check, use a service that complies with the law where you are, get written consent, and apply the same criteria to everyone. The file says all of this out loud, on the tabs where it matters, because a question bank is read as a script.
And the verdict it gives you is a readiness state, not a rating. It can tell you whether you have enough to decide. It cannot tell you whether they are any good — that part is still yours.
