Managing Your Q Score

How Do I Improve My COMPASS Q Score?

You’re asking the wrong question.

The COMPASS Q Score is the Construction Credit Score that provides a standardized, independent assessment of a subcontractor. It's used as a consistent benchmark that General Contractors can use alongside other information when assessing a subcontractor.

But the Q Score isn't the finish line. It's the beginning of the conversation. You don't improve your Q Score directly. You improve your business, and the Q Score reflects those improvements over time.

The question you should be asking is: “How do I build a stronger business and make it easier for General Contractors to understand it?”

• Improve Your Business

  The Q Score assesses performance over time and won’t change overnight. That's the point. The best way to improve your Q Score is to improve the business behind it.

  COMPASS gives you access to something most subcontractors have never had before: the same insights General Contractors use to assess your business. You'll see your strengths, your areas for improvement, how you compare with your peers, and where you have opportunities to improve over time.

  The Q Score won't tell you how to run your business. It will show you how your business is being assessed.

• Make It Easier for General Contractors to Get Comfortable

  A weakness in your prequalification isn't a dealbreaker - how you handle it is. General Contractors expect to perform due diligence during prequalification.

  The subcontractors that stand out are the ones that make that process easier. They anticipate questions, provide additional information, and explain the context behind areas that require further review. Instead of leaving General Contractors to draw their own conclusions, they help them become comfortable moving forward.

The companies with top Q Scores aren't chasing a number. They're building a stronger business and making it easier for General Contractors to understand them.

How Does a General Contractor Use a COMPASS Q Score?

You know why you need a Q Score - to grow your business. You know how it gets you found, prequalified, and ultimately hired. Here's the other side of it: what a General Contractor does with your Q Score once they have it.

The COMPASS Q Score is the Construction Credit Score that provides a standardized, independent assessment of a subcontractor. It's used as a consistent benchmark that General Contractors can use alongside other information when assessing a subcontractor.

The Q Score is the foundation of every prequalification decision on COMPASS. Here's how General Contractors use it.

• Compare Subcontractors Consistently

  Every subcontractor is different, but every subcontractor should be evaluated the same way. That's what the Q Score gives General Contractors: a consistent benchmark for comparing the companies behind the bids, not just the numbers on the page. Whether they're building a shortlist or leveling competing bids, every subcontractor is measured against the same standard.

• Decide How Much Due Diligence Is Required

  Every subcontractor requires due diligence. The question is how much. The Q Score helps General Contractors determine how much review a subcontractor requires.

  Q1 subcontractors are auto-qualified by 92% of General Contractors on COMPASS.

  Q1 - Q3 (Green) subcontractors require Limited to Minimal Review.

  Q4 - Q7 (Yellow) subcontractors require Moderate to Extensive Review.

• Focus Efforts Where It Matters

  Knowing that additional review is required is only part of the process. General Contractors also need to know where to focus their attention. The Q Score highlights where General Contractors should focus additional due diligence before making prequalification decisions.

Every prequalification decision starts somewhere. On COMPASS, it starts with the Q Score.

What happens if I miss updating my Q Score?

The COMPASS Q Score is the Construction Credit Score that provides a standardized, independent assessment of a subcontractor. It's used as a consistent benchmark that can be used alongside other information when assessing a subcontractor.

But there's one thing that can undermine all of that.

A gap.

If you don’t keep your data current, your Q Score expires, and that makes it harder for GCs to evaluate and hire your business.

GCs rely on your COMPASS Q Score to make consistent prequalification decisions. If your business changes, your Q Score should change too.

When anything material in your business changes, it's time to update your information.

General Contractors pay particularly close attention to when your new EMR, OSHA record, and financials are available.

General Contractors expect to review current information and begin evaluating subs for upcoming opportunities.

A consistent benchmark is only valuable if it's current. Miss an update, and here's what happens:

• A gap in your score means a gap in your history: you miss the opportunity to show progress. GCs can't see how your business has grown if the data isn't there and they assume the worst.
• You become harder to hire: an expired Q Score makes you less attractive to GCs building their shortlist. GCs don’t prequalify expired data, and as your prequalifications expire, you fall off those shortlists.

Simply put, an expired Q Score sends the wrong signal. General Contractors rely on current information to make prequalification decisions. When your Q Score isn't up to date, they don't know whether your business has changed or whether the information they're reviewing is still accurate. That uncertainty often leads to more due diligence - or another subcontractor being selected instead.

Mind the gap. Renew your Q Score so that GCs always have an up-to-date, standardized, independent assessment of your business.

Q Score. The Construction Credit Score.