A Service That Turns Subcontractor Receipts into Safety Expense Statements

Subcontractors will take on record-keeping once handled by main contractors

An amendment to the Occupational Safety and Health Act (산업안전보건법) was promulgated on October 27, 2026. Provisions related to construction are scheduled to take effect on April 28, 2027. With about six months between promulgation and enforcement, companies have limited time to change and test their record-keeping practices.

The amended law requires main contractors to include occupational safety and health management expenses in contract amounts when they enter into subcontracting agreements. Contractors that enter into subcontracting agreements with main contractors must also use this money according to the relevant standards and prepare and retain expense statements. Responsibility for preventing the money from being used for purposes unrelated to safety now extends to subcontractors.

The government’s stated aim is to make it possible to verify whether safety management expenses were actually used to prevent accidents throughout multi-tier subcontracting arrangements. Subcontractors must also prepare and retain expense statements, although the precise range of supporting evidence and required forms need to be confirmed in subordinate regulations.

A violation of obligations related to Article 72 may result in an administrative fine of up to KRW 10 million. That is a significant burden for what might otherwise look like the task of organizing a few safety-equipment receipts. The specific reporting frequency, forms, project-value thresholds, and evidence requirements that apply to subcontractors must, however, be confirmed in subordinate regulations to be finalized before enforcement.

Outside construction, a provision requiring safety management expenses to be reflected in contracting agreements in industries specified by Presidential Decree is scheduled to take effect on October 28, 2027. It is still necessary to review detailed standards to know which equipment-installation and maintenance companies will be covered. It is therefore safer to start with specialist construction subcontractors than to address every industry from the outset.

A month changes for a 12-person subcontractor

Consider a 12-person window-frame and metal installation company. Its owner moves between several job sites at once. Site supervisors buy hard hats, safety harnesses, and signs. One office employee handles payroll, tax invoices, and documents submitted to the main contractor.

Today, the company may get by with a site supervisor posting receipt photos in a group messenger chat. The office employee downloads the photos and transfers the amounts into a spreadsheet. They must ask again which site each expense belongs to, find transaction statements and bank-transfer records, attach them, and then re-enter the same information into the form provided by the main contractor.

The problem is not calculation but connection. A receipt exists, but the job site is missing. A photo exists, but there is no record of who received the item. The same purchase may be allocated to two sites. If the main contractor does not accept an item, staff must search through conversations and paper files from weeks earlier.

A small service can change this process at the point of entry. A site supervisor photographs a receipt and selects a site and task. The service reads the date, seller, and amount to create a draft. The office employee then only needs to check the safety-expense category and actual use. If a transaction statement or use photo is missing, the service flags it on the day of entry rather than at month-end.

At month-end, it can separate spending by site, items with complete evidence, and items still awaiting review. Users can download expense statements and evidence bundles in the format required by the main contractor. The service can also retain who changed what and when, and what the main contractor rejected. The aim is to reduce repeatedly transferring one entered amount across messenger chats, spreadsheets, and statements.

Human judgment still remains necessary. Staff must determine whether an item qualifies as a legally recognized safety management expense, how to allocate an item used across several sites, and whether it was actually issued at the site. Rather than replacing legal judgment, a realistic service collects the photos and records needed to make that judgment without gaps.

What is difficult to copy is not receipt-reading itself. The durable assets are the accumulated record of which items each company approved or rejected, different submission formats for each main contractor, and trust with site staff. If safety-equipment sellers can ensure evidence enters the system from the moment of purchase, or if main contractors encourage partner companies to use it, the service can also gain distribution paths that are harder to copy by replicating screens alone.

Overseas products sell records and review history together

In the United States, Raken stores daily site logs, photos and videos, and safety-training signatures in one place. Diamond Concrete & Slabs, a concrete subcontractor, said it used around 20 date- and time-stamped photos and videos to respond to a dispute over responsibility for an oil leak, avoiding more than USD 100,000 in litigation costs. The result, roughly KRW 130 million at the stated conversion, is the company’s own claim and needs separate verification. Still, the example clearly shows that photos can become dispute-defense material before they become a cost-saving tool.

The important point in this case is not a polished report. Around 20 date- and time-stamped photos and videos were used as evidence in a dispute. A Korean safety-expense service would likewise be incomplete if it stored only receipts. It needs to connect purchasing, delivery to the site, issuance to workers, and confirmation by the main contractor.

Australia’s SiteBook manages site training, access, safe-work documents, subcontractor licences and insurance, and inspection photos. Its safety-focused product starts at AUD 149 per month, or about KRW 140,000 at the conversion stated at the time. Workers and subcontractors can participate without a separate fee, lowering the barrier for the people who need to submit records.

SiteBook said Schmidt Construction saved more than 30 hours each week after adoption. The figure is the supplier’s own and needs verification. But the structure—managers pay while the people uploading material from the field participate for free—is worth testing in relationships between Korean main contractors and subcontractors.

The United Kingdom’s HandsHQ is a service for creating safety documents that record hazards and work methods, while retaining signatures and edit histories. GCL, an electrical and telecommunications specialist contractor with about 20 employees, said none of its submitted documents had been rejected after adoption. This is also a supplier case study, but it shows that small companies may pay less for document creation itself than for reducing rewrites and rejections.

In Korea, the first buyer may be a specialist contractor where one or two people handle all paperwork, rather than a large company with a legal team. But it may be more advantageous for sales and data accumulation to have one main contractor bring multiple partner companies onto the same workflow than to sell to subcontractors one at a time.

Four things to build and test now

1. A safety-expense receipt inbox

• What it does: It reads dates and amounts from receipt photos, creates draft expenses by site and task, and flags missing evidence.
• Who uses it: Specialist construction subcontractors with 5 to 30 employees, where one office worker handles settlement across multiple sites.
• Why now: They need to test a record-keeping method using recent project materials before enforcement in April 2027.
• First screen: A list separates this month’s receipts into evidence complete, needs review, and site not assigned.

2. A shared review inbox for main contractors and subcontractors

• What it does: A main-contractor representative can approve or reject expense statements and evidence uploaded by subcontractors, with reasons recorded.
• Who uses it: Site managers at small and mid-sized main contractors that receive safety-expense materials from several specialist companies through email and spreadsheets.
• Why now: When main contractors and subcontractors each record the same expense, they need a place to check omissions and duplication together.
• First screen: It shows submission rates by partner company, unreviewed amounts, rejection counts, and deadlines.

3. A safety-equipment purchase evidence bundle

• What it does: It attaches transaction statements, product information, and site receipt photos to safety-equipment sellers’ order records and stores them as one bundle.
• Who uses it: Equipment-installation, window-frame, and painting subcontractors that repeatedly buy protective equipment and safety facilities for each site, as well as safety-equipment stores that supply them.
• Why now: Securing evidence at the purchase stage avoids having to search for receipts and product information again at month-end.
• First screen: Each recent purchase shows site assignment, delivery confirmation, and evidence-completion status.

4. A month-end closing service with human review

• What it does: A reviewer checks materials uploaded by a company each month and prepares a draft expense statement and a list of items to supplement.
• Who uses it: Specialist contractors with 5 to 15 employees that cannot easily maintain dedicated safety or accounting staff.
• Why now: While detailed standards are still being organized, review by someone who understands each main contractor’s requirements matters as much as automated drafting.
• First screen: It shows days remaining until this month’s deadline, the amount already reviewed, and only the three items the company needs to supplement.

Why this matters where you are

This opportunity comes from Korean conditions: a change in the Occupational Safety and Health Act, multi-tier construction subcontracting, and documentation shared between main contractors and subcontractors. In your market, check whether safety spending, subcontractor evidence, or project-level approvals create similar repeated data entry. If they do, test whether the real bottleneck is collecting proof, reviewing it, or fitting it into the buyer’s required format.

Watch one company prepare a real submission today

Call one specialist construction company with 5 to 30 employees and ask to watch, for 30 minutes, how it prepares one recent set of safety-expense materials. If it copies receipt information into two or more places, or has to return to an earlier step even once because of a missing item or a correction request from the main contractor, an initial receipt inbox is worth building.