Authority Industries Contractor Profile Fields Reference

Contractor profile fields define the structured data points collected, displayed, and verified for each trade professional listed in the Authority Industries directory. This page documents what those fields are, how they function within the directory system, and how they interact with eligibility and vetting standards. Understanding these fields matters because incomplete or inaccurate profile data is one of the primary reasons a legitimate contractor fails to surface in relevant search results or loses credibility with prospective clients.

Definition and scope

A contractor profile field is any discrete, labeled data element that appears on a trade professional's directory listing. In the Authority Industries system, these fields collectively form the canonical record for a contractor — the machine-readable and human-readable summary of who that contractor is, what work they perform, where they operate, and whether their credentials meet directory standards.

Profile fields span two categories: required fields and optional enrichment fields. Required fields must be present and validated before a listing is published. Optional enrichment fields improve search relevance, consumer trust, and match accuracy, but a listing can go live without them.

The scope of these fields is national. As documented in national-scope-trades-coverage, the directory covers trade professionals operating across all 50 U.S. states, which means profile fields must accommodate licensing structures that vary by jurisdiction — a licensed electrician in Texas holds a different credential type than one in Massachusetts, and the profile schema must represent both without ambiguity.

How it works

When a contractor submits a profile for listing, the submission passes through a structured intake form that maps each input to a defined field. Fields fall into the following categories:

Identity and contact fields — Legal business name, DBA (doing business as) name, primary contact phone, business address, and service area zip codes or counties.
Trade classification fields — Primary trade category, sub-specializations, and NAICS code where applicable. These align with the taxonomy described in authority-industries-trade-categories.
Licensing and credential fields — State license number, issuing authority (e.g., state contractor licensing board), license type, expiration date, and bond/insurance certificate reference.
Verification status field — A system-assigned flag (Verified, Pending, Unverified) based on whether the credential data has been cross-checked against a primary source, such as a state licensing board database.
Service capability fields — Project size range (residential, light commercial, commercial), emergency availability flag, and accepted contract types.
Quality signal fields — Years in operation, complaint history flag (populated from the authority-industries-complaint-and-dispute-process workflow), and peer review indicators where applicable.
Media and description fields — Business description (500-character maximum), uploaded license document image, and optional photo assets.

Field data is subject to the accuracy and revision policies documented in authority-industries-data-accuracy-policy. Contractors bear primary responsibility for keeping time-sensitive fields — particularly license expiration dates and insurance certificates — current.

Common scenarios

Scenario 1: Multi-state contractor. A plumbing company licensed in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky must populate a separate licensing credential record for each state. The profile system supports up to 10 state license entries per profile. Each entry carries its own verification status, so a contractor can display as Verified in 2 states and Pending in a third simultaneously.

Scenario 2: Specialty sub-trade contractor. An HVAC technician whose primary trade is heating, ventilation, and air conditioning may also hold a sheet metal fabrication endorsement. The sub-specialization field accepts multiple entries. This matters because keyword matching in directory search operates at the sub-specialization level, not only the primary category — a consumer searching "sheet metal contractor" will surface this profile even though the primary trade classification reads "HVAC."

Scenario 3: Sole proprietor vs. incorporated business. A sole proprietor operating under their personal name presents a different legal entity structure than an LLC or corporation. The profile schema handles this through the entity type field, which accepts: Sole Proprietor, Partnership, LLC, S-Corp, C-Corp, and Other. The entity type field affects how the directory displays the business name and how the vetting process validates insurance thresholds, since general liability minimums can differ by entity class.

Scenario 4: Lapsed credential. When a license expiration date passes without a renewal submission, the verification status field automatically downgrades from Verified to Expired. The listing remains in the directory but carries a visual indicator, and the profile is suppressed from certain filtered search views until the credential is renewed and re-verified.

Decision boundaries

The most consequential boundary in the profile field system is the line between a required field and an optional enrichment field. A missing required field blocks publication entirely. A missing optional field reduces match relevance scores but does not prevent the listing from appearing.

A secondary boundary exists between self-reported data and verified data. License numbers, expiration dates, and bond amounts entered by the contractor are self-reported at intake. They become verified only after the system or a staff review process confirms the data against an authoritative external source — typically a state licensing board's public database. Consumers and directory users can distinguish these states via the verification status indicator on the profile.

A third boundary applies to geographic scope fields. Service area entries are not verified — they are self-declared. A contractor can list 200 zip codes as their service area, and the system will not validate whether they actually operate in those locations. This is a known and documented limitation. Verified license jurisdiction fields, by contrast, are authoritative representations of where a contractor is legally permitted to work. The distinction between "claims to serve" and "is licensed to work" is surfaced explicitly on the consumer-facing profile view.

Profile field requirements are aligned with the broader vetting standards described in authority-industries-contractor-vetting-standards, which govern the depth of credential checking applied at each verification tier.

References

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