Align360 Contractor Operations

Step 1

Invite the contractorAdministrator

The administrator adds the contractor and sends an invitation. Nobody creates or handles a password on anyone else's behalf.

yourfirm.align360.app/admin

ALIGN360

Admin Portal

All Contractors

Invoices

Entity Records

Contractor Profiles

Onboarding

Contract Repository

Payments

Payment Records

Payment Export

Year End

1099-NEC Prep

Onboarding

Meridian Holdings · 3 in progress

Contractor	Progress	Status
Marcus Reyes m.reyes@example.com	Invited Account Profile Agreement	In progress
Priya Anand p.anand@example.com	Invited Account	Invited
Dana Whitfield d.whitfield@example.com	Not started	Not started	Invite

What happens Dana receives an email and sets her own password. The board tracks exactly where each contractor has got to, so "who still hasn't sent their W-9" stops being a question anyone has to ask.

Step 2

She onboards herselfContractor

Four steps, about ten minutes. She can stop and come back — nothing is lost.

yourfirm.align360.app

ALIGN360

Contractor Portal

Getting Started

Meridian Holdings · Dana Whitfield

Four short steps and you're set up — you can stop and come back at any time.

1	Your details Contact information and how you file taxes	Complete
2	Contractor agreement Download, sign, upload the signed copy	Signed
3	Form W-9 Download the blank IRS form, complete and sign it, upload it here. Download Form W-9 Upload signed copy	Required
4	Payment details Held for verification before any payment is made	Not started

Why it matters The agreement and the W-9 are collected here and filed automatically against her record. No separate email thread, and no folder somewhere that only one person knows about.

Step 3

Banking is verified before activationAdministrator

She submits her remittance details. They are held — not used — until an administrator confirms them.

yourfirm.align360.app/admin

ALIGN360

Admin Portal

All Contractors

Invoices

Entity Records

Contractor Profiles

Onboarding

Contract Repository

Payments

Payment Records

Payment Export

Year End

1099-NEC Prep

Onboarding

Dana Whitfield · awaiting verification

Confirm these details with the contractor directly — by phone, not by replying to the message that sent them. Entity payments are a standing fraud target.

Field	Submitted
Method	ACH
Bank	Citizens
Bank address	1 Citizens Plaza, Providence, RI 02903
Account name	Whitfield Advisory LLC
Routing	••••9903
Account	••••2287	Approve Reject

Activate contractor Only then can an invoice be submitted.

The control Account numbers are masked everywhere in the interface. They leave the system in full through one file only — the payee setup file sent to accounting when a contractor is new or their banking changes — and every time it is produced, the system records who produced it. The monthly payment run never carries them.

The same hold applies later. If Dana changes her account in month seven, that change is flagged, held, and the payment file carries a warning until somebody confirms it with her directly. Redirecting a contractor's bank details is the most common way money leaves an estate by mistake.

Step 4

She records the monthContractor

Entered in the browser through the month. Everything saves as she types.

yourfirm.align360.app

ALIGN360

Contractor Portal

Current Invoice

My Invoices

Hours & Earnings

Instructions

Current Invoice

Sep 1 – Sep 30, 2026

Draft

Total Hours

18.75

Rate

$142

Amount Due

$2,662.50

Date	Min	Description	Invoiced	Hours
Sep 3	95	Reviewed claims register against schedules F and G; flagged four duplicate filings for counsel.	95	1.58
Sep 8	140	Prepared September cash forecast and reconciled prior month variance to the operating account.	140	2.33
Sep 11	45	Tracker update Needs more detail before this can be submitted	45	0.75
Sep 17	212	Drafted quarterly fee statement narrative and supporting time detail for the plan administrator.	215	3.58
Total			1,125	18.75

Two things happening Minutes round up to the next five and convert to hours automatically — the rule is enforced by the system rather than by a formula someone can overwrite. And a thin description is flagged to her, before submission, rather than being discovered weeks later by whoever assembles the summary.

She is reminded three days before the entity's due date, and weekly after it if she hasn't submitted. Chasing stops being anybody's job.

A contractor who would rather keep their own spreadsheet can import it instead — the lines are read, previewed, and the rounding re-applied. Out-of-pocket costs like mileage or a wire fee go on the same invoice with the receipt attached, and each one is approved separately.

Step 5

Returned for correctionAdministrator

The reviewer sends it back with a written note. It reopens for her automatically.

yourfirm.align360.app/admin

ALIGN360

Admin Portal

All Contractors

Invoices

Entity Records

Contractor Profiles

Onboarding

Contract Repository

Payments

Payment Records

Payment Export

Year End

1099-NEC Prep

Invoices

Every invoice, every entity

All 11 Awaiting review 3 Returned 1 Filed — unpaid 2 Paid 4

Entity	Contractor	Hours	Amount	Status
Meridian Holdings	Marcus Reyes	31.25	$4,921.88	Submitted	Return File
Meridian Holdings	Dana Whitfield 1 line needs more detail	18.75	$2,662.50	Submitted	Return File
Northshore Partners	Priya Anand	22.08	$3,005.09	Submitted	Return File

Returned to Dana Whitfield.

"Sep 11 — please expand 'tracker update' to say which tracker and what was done. Everything else is fine."

The loop that replaces the email thread She sees the note the moment she opens the portal, the invoice unlocks for editing, and she resubmits. Nobody digs through a mailbox to find which version was the corrected one.

Step 6

Every change, on the recordAdministrator

The invoice was corrected and resubmitted. The system holds exactly what changed, when, and who did it.

yourfirm.align360.app/admin

ALIGN360

Admin Portal

All Contractors

Invoices

Entity Records

Contractor Profiles

Onboarding

Contract Repository

Payments

Payment Records

Payment Export

Year End

1099-NEC Prep

Dana Whitfield — September 2026

Resubmitted · 18.75 hours · $2,662.50

In review

One line was edited after this invoice was first submitted. Changes made after submission are marked so a reviewer never has to take the current version on trust.

When	Event	Detail	By
Oct 2, 4:12 PM	Resubmitted	18.75 hours · $2,662.50	d.whitfield@example.com
Oct 2, 4:09 PM	Line edited	Sep 11 description from "Tracker update" to "Updated the claims reconciliation tracker with the four duplicate filings identified on Sep 3 and circulated to counsel."	d.whitfield@example.com
Oct 1, 9:38 AM	Returned	"Sep 11 — please expand 'tracker update'…"	you@yourfirm.com
Sep 30, 6:20 PM	Submitted	18.75 hours · $2,662.50 · rate locked at $142.00	d.whitfield@example.com
Sep 3, 11:04 AM	Created	First line recorded	d.whitfield@example.com

The rate is captured onto the invoice at submission, so a later rate change never rewrites a month that has already been billed.

Why this is the one that matters A workbook edited after it was emailed looks exactly like one that never was. If this entity's fees are ever examined, the question is "can you show the invoice as it stood when it was submitted, and account for every change since?" — and the answer here is a record nobody had to remember to keep.

Step 7

Now multiply that by everyoneAdministrator

One screen for every contractor across every entity — and one click into any of them.

yourfirm.align360.app/admin

ALIGN360

Admin Portal

All Contractors

Invoices

Entity Records

Contractor Profiles

Onboarding

Contract Repository

Payments

Payment Records

Payment Export

Year End

1099-NEC Prep

All 1099 Contractors

Every contractor, every entity · September 2026

Entities

4

17 active contractors

Sep 2026

$38,412

across all entities

Year to Date

$341,908

Jan–Sep 2026

Sep 2026 ▾ All entities ▾ Search contractor…

Entity	Contractor	Hours	Sep	YTD	Status
Meridian Holdings	Marcus Reyes	31.25	$4,921.88	$41,308	Filed
Meridian Holdings	Dana Whitfield Whitfield Advisory LLC	18.75	$2,662.50	$23,940	Filed
Meridian Holdings	Ellis Nakamura	0.00	—	$12,110	Not started
Northshore Partners	Priya Anand	22.08	$3,005.09	$18,215	Submitted
Northshore Partners	Tomas Herrera	14.50	$2,682.50	$26,440	Filed
All entities — Sep 2026		86.58	$13,271.97	$122,013

Dana Whitfield

Meridian Holdings · $142.00/hr · rolling 12 months

12-month total $31,204

The question this answers Not "did Dana submit her invoice" but "where does the portfolio stand this month, and is anyone drifting." Ellis hasn't started; Priya is still in review. Filter to one entity and the totals follow. Click any contractor and you get their twelve-month history, which is how an unusual month becomes visible before it becomes a payment.

Step 8

One schedule for accountingAdministrator

Every entity, one file. Grouped by entity, with the total to reconcile against that account's debit.

yourfirm.align360.app/admin

ALIGN360

Admin Portal

All Contractors

Invoices

Entity Records

Contractor Profiles

Onboarding

Contract Repository

Payments

Payment Records

Payment Export

Year End

1099-NEC Prep

Payment Export

September 2026 · all entities

Download for accounting

Account numbers are masked in this file. Accounting already holds the full details from the payee setup file, so the monthly run names who to pay and how much — nothing more. Tick one box and each entity also gets its own file for its books. Every run is recorded.

Meridian Holdings — paying from Comerica ••••4417
Pay To	Method	Hours	Amount
Marcus Reyes	ACH	31.25	$4,921.88
Whitfield Advisory LLC for Dana Whitfield	ACH	18.75	$2,662.50
Meridian Holdings — total to debit		50.00	$7,584.38

Northshore Partners — paying from Wells Fargo ••••9052
Pay To	Method	Hours	Amount
Priya Anand	Wire	22.08	$3,005.09
Northshore Partners — total to debit		22.08	$3,005.09

Why grouped, and why masked Each entity disburses from its own account, so the entity subtotal is the figure that has to reconcile against that statement. A flat list leaves someone adding it up by hand — and paying a contractor billing through a company means paying the company, which is why Pay To is its own column.

The file carries no full account numbers. A payment run goes out every month; a copy of every contractor's banking going out with it every month is twelve copies a year sitting in someone's downloads folder. Full details go to accounting once, and again only when they change.

Step 9

And in January, it is already doneAdministrator

Year-end preparation reads the same record, rather than twelve months of workbooks.

yourfirm.align360.app/admin

ALIGN360

Admin Portal

All Contractors

Invoices

Entity Records

Contractor Profiles

Onboarding

Contract Repository

Payments

Payment Records

Payment Export

Year End

1099-NEC Prep

1099-NEC Preparation

2026 · all entities

1 recipient at or above the $600 threshold has no W-9 on file. Collect it before filing.

Recipient	Entity	TIN	W-9	Box 1	Reportable
Marcus Reyes	Meridian Holdings	••••4471	Yes	$41,308.14	Yes
Whitfield Advisory LLC for Dana Whitfield	Meridian Holdings	••••8820	Yes	$23,940.00	Yes
Priya Anand	Northshore Partners	—	Missing	$18,215.42	Yes

The compounding part Every invoice filed through the year builds this. The W-9 gap is surfaced in January because the system has been tracking it since onboarding — not because someone remembered to check.

One contractor, one billing month

See it against your own process