Advanced guides
Manually uploading contractors
Learn how to use our bulk upload feature to manually upload contractors.
Overview
1099Policy was built, first and foremost, as an API that embeds within the platforms that contractors use to find work. At the same time, not all 1099Policy partners are at the same stage, maturity, and technical sophistication to support an API integration on day one. In an effort to support partners at all stages, 1099Policy provides the option to “bulk upload” multiple contractors at once directly from the 1099Policy dashboard.
The rest of this guide describes the steps involved, required information and common pitfalls to avoid when using the “bulk upload” feature from the 1099Policy dashboard.
Getting Started
Bulk importing contractors includes four steps:
- make a copy of the “Subscriber Form” template (Google Sheet also linked from the dashboard) for your own use;
- add the required contractor information into your spreadsheet (more details below);
- download the spreadsheet as a CSV; and
- upload the file to the 1099Policy Dashboard.
To start, visit General > Contractors from the left navigation and click the “Bulk import contractors” button.
You’ll see a dialog screen and instructions to “make a copy of the bulk import template to get started.” The template link will open to a non-editable Google Sheet titled 1099Policy Subscriber Form that you will need to copy in order to modify.
Once you’ve (1) made a copy, (2) populated the spreadsheet, and (3) downloaded the spreadsheet as a CSV, you’re ready to upload your file to the 1099Policy dashboard.
Required Fields
For those familiar with spreadsheets generally, and Google Sheets in particular, a spreadsheet’s flexibility is a benefit but can create challenges for the unwary. To that end, we’ve added data validation directly into the Google Sheet to make it easier to spot missing information. The table below details all of the fields, whether it’s required, and a description of the field.
| Field | Required? | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ultimate Client Name | Yes | The name of the entity for whom the contractor is doing work (i.e., Unilever, etc). |
| Independent Contractor's First Name | Yes | The contractor's first name. |
| Independent Contractor's Last Name | Yes | The contractor's last name. |
| Independent Contractor's Company Name (If Applicable) | No | This would be the same as the contracting entity. |
| Independent Contractor's Email Address | Yes | The contractor's email address. |
| Job Title | Yes | A list of job titles that map in our system to pre-approved job category codes. |
| Brief Job Description. | Yes | A detailed description of the work that the contractor will be doing. |
| State where Work is being Performed | Yes | The contractor’s work state. List primary state if more than one state applies. |
| Contractor's Mailing Address (Line 1) | Yes | The contractor’s resident address, line 1. This can be the address of authorized representative. |
| Contractor's Mailing Address (Line 2) | Yes | The contractor’s resident address, line 2. This can be the address of authorized representative. |
| Contractor's Mailing Address (City) | Yes | The contractor’s city of residence. Can be the address of authorized representative. |
| Contractor's Mailing Address (State) | Yes | The contractor’s state of residence. Can be the address of authorized representative. |
| Contractor's Postal Code | Yes | The contractor’s postal code. |
| Type of Business Organization of IC | Yes | Whether the contractor is operating as a sole proprietor or as a business entity (i.e., LLC, etc) |
| Independent Contractor's Mobile Phone | No | The contractor’s mobile phone number. |
| Total No of Employees | No | The contractor’s number of employees, if applicable. |
| Total Influencer Fee | Yes | The wages that the contractor will earn for the assignment. |
| Campaign Start Date | Yes | The contractor’s job assignment start date. |
| Campaign End Date | Yes | The contractor’s job assignment end date. |
| Purchase Order Number (If applicable) | No | For platform partner’s that withhold insurance premium payments on behalf of contractors, the option to enter a purchase order number. |
| Category Type | Yes | A pre-defined list of insurance coverage options provided by 1099Policy that the contractor needs (i.e., general, workers-comp, etc.). |
| Agency Pay / Contractor Pay | Yes | Indicates whether the platform partner is withholding premium payments or if the contractor will pay via credit card. |
| Purchase Order Contact Name (If applicable) | Yes | The contact name of the person providing the purchase order number. |
| Purchase Order Contact Email (If applicable) | Yes | The contact email of the person providing the purchase order number. |
Video Walkthrough
Troubleshooting
As noted, the Google Sheet includes fairly comprehensive data validation to ensure field values you enter don’t result in an error when you upload. That said, we’ve seen file uploads fail for various reasons, including:
- Missing fields – if the Google Sheet row does’t turn green, you’re missing a required field. Check that you’ve added all of the required fields before exporting the file as a CSV and uploading to 1099Policy.
- Invalid fields – the data validation is built directly into Google Sheets. That said, if you download the Google sheet and modify it in a different tool that doesn’t check that all of the fields (email, date, etc) are valid, then you’re more likely to run into errors when you upload the file.
- Duplicate emails – 1099Policy platform requires that every contractor have a unique email. If the email is a duplicate of one already on the platform, you’ll see an error when you upload.
- Merging rows – check that each row and cell are distinct and that you haven’t merged multiple rows into one row.