📱 In Your Day
Real-world moments where PriceRight Pro does the work for you. This is a scenario walkthrough — not a setup guide. For the full guide, see Run Your 1099 Tracker and Export to Schedule C →
The moment #
You brought in a sub for a bigger job — a helper you paid out of your pocket. $800 in cash for two days of work. Job is done, everyone’s happy. You move on.
Here’s what most contractors don’t think about in that moment: you just created a 1099 obligation. If you pay any individual $600 or more in a calendar year for services, you’re required to issue them a 1099-NEC by January 31. That sub’s name, address, and Social Security number need to be in your records before the end of the year — not after.
What to do now #
Log the payment as an expense in PriceRight Pro — category: Subcontractors or Professional Services, vendor: the sub’s name, amount: $800. Get a W-9 from them if you haven’t already. The W-9 gives you their legal name, address, and Tax ID number — everything you need to file the 1099-NEC in January.
If you bring this person back and pay them again this year, you’re tracking the running total in your expenses. When it crosses $600 for the year, that’s a 1099 you owe.
What the 1099 Tracker shows you #
PriceRight’s 1099 Tracker shows you the 1099-NEC forms you should be receiving from your own clients — any client who paid you $600 or more. That’s the other side of the same equation. In January, when you’re checking off which 1099s have arrived from clients, you’re also in the mindset to confirm you’ve issued yours to any subs you paid.
The two sides mirror each other: clients owe you a 1099 when you cross $600. You owe your subs a 1099 when they cross $600. Log sub payments as expenses all year, collect W-9s when you bring someone on, and January is a one-week administrative task instead of a scramble to find paper trails.
The cost of skipping this #
The IRS penalty for failing to file a required 1099-NEC is $60–$630 per form depending on how late it is. More importantly, if you can’t produce records showing what you paid a subcontractor, you may lose the deduction entirely at audit. A $800 sub expense logged properly is a deduction. An $800 cash payment with no record is a liability.
