Picking the right trade for a contractor
A trade is a label that says what this contractor does. A roofer is tagged with Roofer, a kitchen builder with Carpenter, your architect with Architect. Once a contractor has a trade, the rest of Hemma can group them with their peers — comparing roofing quotes against each other, listing every electrician on your project, sorting your contractors by what they do.
01Where trades show up
Three places, and you can see them all without opening any settings:
- The contractor card. On the Contractors page, each contractor has small trade badges under their name. General contractor, Plumber, Architect.
- The trade filter. Above the contractor list, every trade in your project appears as a clickable pill. Tap one and the list narrows to contractors of that trade. Combine pills to filter to several.
- Quote comparison. When you have two or more quotes for the same trade, Hemma groups them on your home screen as a comparison card. Trades are how Hemma knows which quotes are comparable — a roofing quote and an electrical quote will not be put side by side.
02How trades get assigned
You do not pick the trade when you add a contractor. Hemma assigns it automatically.
The source is the NACE codes in the contractor's KBO record — the official Belgian classification of what the company is registered to do. After you save a contractor with a VAT number, a background job reads those NACE codes and maps them to one or more trades:
| NACE code starts with | Trade Hemma assigns |
|---|---|
| 411, 412 | General contractor |
| 4321 | Electrician |
| 4322 | Plumber |
| 4329, 4325 | HVAC, Insulation |
| 4331 | Plasterer |
| 4332 | Carpenter |
| 4333 | Flooring |
| 4334 | Painter |
| 4391 | Roofer |
| 711 | Architect |
| 712 | Surveyor |
| 813 | Landscaper |
Some companies hold several NACE codes — a general contractor that also does roofing, an electrician registered for HVAC. In that case the contractor gets multiple trade badges, and shows up in every relevant filter and comparison.
If you added the contractor manually (no VAT number), there is no NACE source to read from, so no trade is assigned automatically. The contractor still works — they just won't appear in the trade filter or be eligible for comparison until you give them a trade.
03Why the trade matters
A trade is not cosmetic. It changes what Hemma will and won't do:
- Quote comparison only matches quotes within the same trade. If you upload three roofing quotes, you get a comparison card. If you upload a roofing quote and an electrical quote, you do not — they are not comparable. The trade is the matching key.
- Comparison prompts are tuned per trade. Hemma's analysis of roofing quotes asks different questions than its analysis of HVAC quotes — warranty rules, material specs, and the exclusions to watch for are different. The trade tells Hemma which playbook to use.
- Filtering scales as your project grows. Past a dozen contractors, scrolling the list gets noisy. Filtering by trade is the fast way to find every electrician or every painter when you need to make a decision.
04Trade names you might see
The labels Hemma uses are deliberately plain and Belgian-context aware: General contractor, Electrician, Plumber, HVAC, Plasterer, Carpenter, Flooring, Painter, Roofer, Demolition, Concrete works, Insulation, Architect, Surveyor, Landscaper.
You will sometimes see a slightly different vocabulary on the quote comparison screen — a fuller construction-phase taxonomy that breaks "general work" into things like Groundworks & Foundation, Structural Work, Roofing, Plumbing, Heating & Cooling, and so on. Same idea, slightly different lens. Both vocabularies map onto the same underlying contractor.
05Common questions
A contractor has the wrong trade. Email hello@gethemma.app with the contractor and the trade you would expect. Manual override is on its way; in the meantime we can correct it for you.
A contractor has no trade. Either Hemma has not finished the KBO enrichment yet (give it a minute and refresh), or the contractor has no VAT number, or their NACE codes do not match any trade in the table above. In the last case, drop us a note — that NACE code probably belongs in the table.
Why doesn't my comparison card appear? The two quotes might be tagged to different trades. Open each quote's contractor and check — if they are the same trade and you still don't see the card, see comparing quotes side by side for the rest of the matching rules.
Can a contractor be in more than one trade? Yes. Multiple NACE codes mean multiple trades. The contractor shows up in every matching filter and in every relevant comparison.
06What if it goes wrong
- A trade filter pill returns zero contractors but you know one exists: their trade probably doesn't match exactly. Clear the filter and check the contractor's badges.
- A quote was processed but doesn't appear in any comparison: open the quote, find the contractor, check the trade. No trade means no comparison.
- A trade you expect doesn't appear in the filter: that trade simply isn't on any contractor in your project yet. Add (or import) a contractor of that trade and the pill appears.