Written programs for ISNetworld, Avetta, Veriforce and GC prequalification: what the review accepts

ISNetworld, Avetta and Veriforce: who they are and who makes you use them

All three are contractor management platforms. The owner pays a subscription and sets requirements; you pay a subscription and upload the proof; the platform's reviewers check your files against the owner's list; the owner looks at your status before the purchase order moves. The owner's vendor letter picks the platform, and a sub with three owners can end up paying for three accounts.

ISNetworld® is headquartered in Dallas, has operated since 2001, and reports 900 hiring clients and 90,000 active contractors and suppliers (isnetworld.com/en/about-isn); it also lists an office in Midland. Its review team is RAVS® (Review and Verification Services); the subscription FAQ says they review written safety, health, environmental and quality programs, injury forms, insurance and workers' compensation documents, and employee-level training (isnetworld.com/en/faqs). Fees are annual plus a setup fee, priced by employee count averaged over three years.

Avetta® reports more than 500 hiring clients and 360,000 suppliers (avetta.com/about). Registration takes safety documentation, questionnaires and insurance, and the price depends on your work type and the client's requirements (avetta.com/suppliers). Avetta calls its paper review a safety manual audit. Entergy, which serves southeast Texas, runs its contractor prequalification through Avetta (pages.avetta.com/Entergy.html).

Veriforce® is based in Shenandoah, north of Houston, and serves energy and utilities companies and their contractors (veriforce.com). In Veriforce's own description of its contractor safety audit, you upload OSHA statistics quarterly, a reviewer checks them against your 300 and 300A forms and your EMR, and a safety specialist reviews your policies (veriforce.com).

In Texas, oilfield services in the Permian and the petrochemical and pipeline owners along the Houston Ship Channel sit mostly on ISNetworld and Veriforce; utilities, telecom and facility-services owners more often use Avetta. General contractors send their own packet, covered below.

What the account asks for

Two things trip up subcontractors. First, the ten-or-fewer exemption: with 10 or fewer employees at all times during the last calendar year, 29 CFR 1904.1(a)(1) says you do not have to keep the 300 log (you still report a fatality, in-patient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye under 1904.39). The platforms and the GCs want three years of numbers anyway; the university form below says exempt companies provide the equivalent information. Keep the log. Second, the numbers have to agree: the 300A total, the questionnaire entry, and hours from payroll without vacation and holidays, because the reviewer will look.

The written programs they review: RAVS-style, ten to twenty at a time

None of the platforms publishes a fixed list of programs, because there isn't one. The owner's requirements plus your questionnaire answers build it: say yes to excavation work and an excavation program appears. Answer truthfully and narrowly, because every yes is a program you have to write, keep current and train to. What ends up on a subcontractor's list:

About the phrase safety manual. No OSHA standard requires one; the standards require the programs above when the hazard is present. Avetta names its review for the manual, ISNetworld's RAVS team reviews programs one at a time, and GCs ask for both. Write each program to stand alone, with your company name, the date, the responsible person and the training frequency on page one, then bind them behind a table of contents. The binder is the manual; the files are the programs.

EMR and TRIR: the math on a 10-person crew

The incidence rate formula is on OSHA's recordkeeping forms package (osha.gov/recordkeeping/forms): total recordable cases × 200,000 ÷ hours worked by all employees. The 200,000 is 100 employees working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks, so the rate reads as cases per 100 full-time workers a year. DART is the same formula using the column H and column I cases from the 300 log. What counts as recordable is in 1904.7(b)(1).

Now the crew: ten people, full year, 2,000 hours each, 20,000 hours on the 300A.

• No recordable cases: TRIR 0.0.
• One laceration that took stitches: 1 × 200,000 ÷ 20,000 = TRIR 10.0. If it also cost a day off, DART 10.0.
• Two cases: 20.0.

BLS put the 2024 total recordable case rate for construction at 2.2 per 100 full-time workers and DART at 1.3; specialty trade contractors were 2.3 and 1.4 (bls.gov). A 10-person crew cannot land near 2.2 except at zero; one set of stitches is four or five times the industry number, and the owner's threshold was written for companies with a hundred times your hours. That is why most questionnaires take three years and some owners average them: one case over 60,000 hours is 3.3. When an owner's rep asks about a high year, the answer is the 301 form, the investigation and the fix.

The EMR comes from your workers' compensation carrier: it compares your losses over a rating period to what the rating bureau expects for your payroll and class codes, and 1.00 is average. Texas adopted the NCCI experience rating plan for modifications effective on or after July 1, 2015 (tdi.texas.gov); a company without a calculated modification carries 1.00, and the McGough form says to enter 1 and attach the insurer's letter. Texas adds a wrinkle: private employers can choose not to carry workers' compensation (tdi.texas.gov/wc/employer), and a non-subscriber has no EMR because there is no policy to rate. If that is you, have a letter ready that says what coverage you do carry, and read the owner's contract first, because many require workers' compensation regardless of Texas law.

What a GC's own prequalification packet asks for

General contractors mostly do not put subs on the platforms; they send a packet. Three public ones show the range.

• McGough, a general contractor, posts a sample application (mcgough.com, SAMPLE Prequal Application Questionnaire, May 2025). It asks yes or no for a written field safety program, a substance abuse policy, safety meetings and inspections and how often, a safety professional, and OSHA training; then a three-year table of OSHA citations, EMR, recordable and lost-time rates, hours, employees and fatalities. Attachments: the safety manual, three years of 300 and 300A, three years of EMR letters, the insurance certificate with endorsements.
• Plano-Coudon, another GC, keeps safety to three lines on its Part A form (plano-coudon.com, PC Prequalification Form Part A, October 2024): a safety program, yes or no; EMR for three years; a quality control program, yes or no. The follow-up questions come by phone.
• Howard University posts a subcontractor health and safety questionnaire (ehs.howard.edu) that reads like an owner's platform on paper: three years of EMR on the carrier's letterhead; three years of 300 and 300A; a table of fatalities, recordables, TRIR, DART, employees and hours; the table of contents of your written program; activity hazard analyses; a yes-or-no list of training topics; training certificates; chemical inventory and safety data sheets; citations in three years; a written drug and alcohol program; an officer's signature.

The records are the same records. Most GCs also ask how often you hold the toolbox talk and walk the site; write those frequencies into the programs so the form and the binder agree.

Grading, turnaround and why programs get rejected

Each account shows a status per hiring client, built from the questionnaire, your statistics against that client's thresholds, the program review and the insurance review. What passes is the client's decision: ISNetworld says contractors are evaluated on regulatory, industry and hiring client criteria, and Avetta reviews your information against your client's requirements. None of the three publishes a review turnaround, so plan for at least one round of corrections before the purchase order.

When a program comes back, the comment usually says one of these:

1. It does not name your company. Another contractor's name on page 4, a bracketed placeholder in the header, no responsible person. Company name, the responsible person's title, an approval date and a signature go on page one.
2. A required element is missing. No competent person named for excavation (1926.650(b)), no periodic inspection in the lockout program (1910.147(c)(6)(i)), no fit testing, no rescue plan, no equipment listed. Add the element; do not rewrite the program.
3. No training frequency. Initial, then what the rule sets: annual for hearing conservation (1910.95(k)(2)), a forklift evaluation at least every three years (1910.178(l)(4)(iii)), retraining on the triggers in 1926.503(c).
4. Generic language that contradicts the questionnaire. The questionnaire says you enter permit spaces; the program says you do not. A template written for a plant, uploaded by a roofing sub.
5. The wrong rule or the wrong state. A construction sub citing 1910 for fall protection, or a California-only requirement in a Texas sub's program because the template came from there.
6. Stale. No review date, or one older than the client allows.

When one is rejected, fix the named item, note the revision date, and upload it again. If the comment asks for something the rule does not require, it is the client's requirement; add it, or take it up with the owner's safety rep, never with the reviewer in the comment box. Keep every version you uploaded.

The order of work for a subcontractor

1. Gather the records before you open the account. Three years of 300 logs and 300As, hours from payroll, the EMR letters (call the agent today; this is the slow one), the insurance certificate, every training certificate.
2. Fill out the questionnaire narrowly and truthfully. Print the list of required programs it produces.
3. Write each program to the paragraph with your company's details. Name, responsible person by title, equipment, training frequency, the rule's elements in the rule's order, an approval date and a signature. One file per program.
4. Build the training matrix. Employees down the side, topics across the top, date trained and next due in the cells, a certificate behind each.
5. Upload everything in one sitting, then leave it alone until the review comes back.
6. Answer the owner-specific questions for each hiring client that connects to you; its site requirements become contract terms.
7. Put the renewal calendar on the wall.

In-house or hired out is a question of time, not skill. A consultant sells familiarity with the checklists; a consultant cannot produce a 300 log you did not keep or an EMR letter the carrier has not issued. None of the platforms publishes a price list, so get the quote in writing and ask whether the owner sponsors the fee.

Keeping it current

• February 1. The new 300A is certified by a company executive and posted through April 30 (1904.32(b)(3) to (b)(6)); the same week, the new year's numbers go into every account. Keep five years of logs (1904.33(a)).
• Policy renewal. New EMR letter, new insurance certificate, uploaded before the old ones expire.
• Annual program review. A review date on every program every year. Several rules set their own clock: the lockout periodic inspection (1910.147(c)(6)(i)), the silica plan review (1926.1153(g)(2)), hearing conservation training (1910.95(k)(2)).
• New employees. Orientation and topic training before they go to the owner's site, recorded in the matrix the same day.
• New equipment or new work. A boom lift, permit-space entry, hot work: your questionnaire answer changes, which adds a program. Write it before the first shift.
• One owner. Name one person who owns the accounts and the calendar. Expired paperwork is a nobody-was-watching failure, and it stops the purchase order just the same.

More on prequalification

Each of these goes deeper on one part of the work:

• ISNetworld RAVS written programs: what the review is and how to prepare
• Avetta safety manual audit: what it reviews and why documents come back
• Highwire safety assessment: the documents, the score and how to clear a discrepancy
• Subcontractor prequalification packet: what general contractors ask for
• OSHA 300A for prequalification: three years, exempt companies and numbers that match
• EMR for prequalification: what the experience mod means and where the letter comes from
• TRIR and DART for prequalification: the formula and the mistakes reviewers catch

Questions we get

Not sure how this applies to your work? Ask the 29Safety safety team in the chat, or email safetyteam@29safety.com.