Contractor billing is one of those parts of facilities management that can get complicated fast.
Different rates across sites.
Costs submitted without the right backup.
Markups that aren’t always clear.
And approval workflows that turn into a lot of back-and-forth.
This month’s release is all about making that whole process simpler, more accurate and easier to control, with smarter rate card management and stronger cost handling built in.
Here’s what’s new in January...
Rate cards are now more powerful and easier to manage across sites and contractors, especially if you’re dealing with different pricing rules depending on location or time of work.
Site Rate Types can now be created and managed directly in Settings, then assigned to specific sites.
We’ve also introduced a new Rate Card Templates area, where you can:
This gives teams far more consistency across contractor pricing, without needing workarounds or manual overrides.
Result: fewer billing disputes, cleaner reporting and more accurate cost control across your portfolio.
We’ve made major improvements to cost management this month, with better markup handling and stronger evidencing controls throughout the contractor workflow.
A new Markups tab has been added to the contractor view.
Users can now:
This makes it much easier to understand exactly what’s being applied, and why.
Evidencing Controls
Contractors can now upload evidence at multiple stages of the work.
And importantly:
If you’ve ever had an invoice come through with no backup (or had to scramble during an audit), this is a big step forward.
Result: tighter governance, smoother approvals, and more confidence in every cost line.
The billing process now supports two additional cost types:
This provides more flexibility and accuracy when capturing the true cost of work, especially on larger or specialist jobs.
FM work rarely fits neatly into one cost category. Now, your reporting and contractor billing can reflect what actually happens on site.
Alongside the major billing updates, we’ve also shipped several wider improvements across the platform.
We’ve improved the Planned Work template import/export experience to better support bulk updating.
New columns now include:
Teams managing planned maintenance at scale who want more control without manual rework.
Site access times are now more flexible, with:
This allows teams to provide clearer access details, which will appear across relevant notifications and within the platform.
Less confusion, fewer missed visits, and smoother contractor coordination.
We’ve improved the bulk cost approval experience by making auditing rule violations much easier to spot.
When selected work orders contain violations:
New filters have also been added:
Faster review, stronger control and fewer surprises at the approval stage.
This month’s updates are all about helping FM teams stay on top of contractor billing, improve compliance and reduce the admin that slows approvals down.
As always, we’d love your feedback.
Got something you want to see in expansive?
Let us know at hello@expansive.co.uk. We genuinely do take customer input seriously when shaping what comes next.
Stay tuned for more updates soon.