The furnace quits on a Sunday night in January. You know you have a vendor list somewhere. You also know that the HVAC company on it moved across the county last year, and you are not sure anyone else on it does furnaces.
So you search your texts instead. That is what an unused vendor list looks like. The problem is rarely that the list is missing. It is that the list cannot answer the question you actually have: who covers this address, for this trade, is still insured, and did a decent job last time?
A list that answers that question gets opened. Here are the columns that make it answer.
Trade
One trade per row, even when a company does two. A handyman who also does minor plumbing gets two rows, because you will search by trade under pressure and a combined “general/plumbing” entry hides from you. Keep the trade names short and the same every time: plumbing, electrical, HVAC, appliance, landscaping, cleaning, general.
Service area
This is the column people skip, and it is the reason the Sunday-night call fails. Write it in plain words a stranger could check: “north of the river,” “the whole county,” “within 20 minutes of downtown.” If you own in two towns, a vendor who only covers one of them is a vendor for half your list.
Rate
How they bill, not just what. Hourly with a minimum, a flat trip charge, a flat price per job, or time and materials. Write down the after-hours rate separately if there is one. You want to know that number while you are deciding whether a job can wait until Monday, not after.
Insurance expiry date
A date, not a checkmark. “Insured: yes” was true on the day somebody typed it. Ask each vendor for a current certificate of insurance, write the expiry date in its own column, and sort by that column once a quarter. Anything expiring in the next 60 days gets an email asking for the renewal. It takes ten minutes, and it is much easier than finding out after a claim.
The rating after each job
This is the column that makes the list worth keeping. After every job, give the vendor one number from 1 to 5 and one line of why. “4. Fixed the leak first visit, invoice $40 over the quote.” “2. No-show Tuesday, came Thursday, tenant unhappy.”
Rate right after the work, not once a year. Memory is generous, and a vendor you liked in general can hide three slow jobs in a row. A running record lets you see the trend. It also settles the question of which of two electricians did the panel work, because the line is on the job.
If you are still building the roster, not keeping it, how to find a reliable vendor covers the vetting side: license lookups, the paid trial job, and the questions to ask first.
The tax column: a W-9 before the first payment
Add one more column: W-9 on file, yes or no, and the date it came in. Collect it before you pay a new vendor for the first time. Chasing a tax ID in January from a plumber you used once in June is miserable.
The threshold changed recently. For payments made in 2026 and later, Form 1099-NEC is required for nonemployee compensation of $2,000 or more to a vendor in a year, and the IRS says that amount may be adjusted for inflation starting in 2027. For payments made in 2025 and earlier the threshold was $600. A running total per vendor tells you who crossed the line. Whether you have to file a 1099 at all turns on whether your rental counts as a business, and whether a landlord has to send a 1099 works through that question.
Mark vendors inactive instead of deleting them
A vendor who retired, or whom you stopped using, still did work on your units. Keep the row and mark it inactive. The history stays attached, and the active list stays short enough to read on a phone.
Where the list lives
A spreadsheet works fine for a handful of vendors. The vendor list template has these columns already: company, contact, trade, phone, email, service area, rate, insurance expiry, and notes.
The weak spot in a spreadsheet is the rating. It sits in a different file from the job, so it gets skipped. In LeaseRooster the vendor directory keeps trade, contact details, notes, and an active flag, and your team gives the 1 to 5 rating on the work order itself, so the score sits next to the job it describes. Service area, rate, and the insurance date go in the vendor’s notes. The directory is part of maintenance and work orders on the Growth plan and up, and it lives in the same property management CRM as your tenants and leads.
Start with the last three jobs
Do not try to rebuild the whole list tonight. Open the last three repair invoices. Add each vendor with trade, service area, and rate, give each job its rating, and send each vendor a request for a current insurance certificate and a W-9. That is a working list. Add the rest the next time you call someone.
This is general information, not legal advice. Rules change and local ordinances vary. Confirm current requirements with your city, county, or an attorney before you act.