How we vet detailers

What we check

An applicant works through a checklist of checks before they can be approved. The current set includes a background check, a driver's license, auto insurance, liability insurance, a business license, an inspection of the vehicle they work out of, an inspection of their equipment, a training course, tax information, and setting up how they get paid. Which of those are mandatory — and which ones don't block approval but are still collected — is something Dripbase sets and can change, so this is a description of what's required today, not a permanent list.

Each check moves through its own review: not started, submitted and waiting on a reviewer (or on a third-party vendor, for the background check), approved, or rejected. An application as a whole isn't approved until every check that's currently mandatory has been individually approved — there's no partial approval or override that skips one.

If a reviewer needs something different — a clearer photo, a current certificate — the applicant is told specifically what and why, rather than just seeing "rejected." Getting an application to approved can take a few rounds of back-and-forth, most of it waiting on the applicant, and background checks specifically can involve a wait on the vendor that neither the applicant nor Dripbase controls directly.

The training course

Part of vetting is a short training course. It's built around a set of questions, and a detailer has to answer enough of them correctly to pass — it isn't a checkbox for "watched a video." Passing it is one more thing that has to happen before an application can be approved, in the same way each insurance or license check does.

Approval isn't the finish line

Getting approved makes a detailer active and eligible to be offered jobs. It doesn't mean the checking stops. Some checks — insurance is the clearest example — are only valid for a period of time, and that period is set when the check gets approved. Once it lapses, that check moves to expired, and an expired check blocks new job offers immediately, even for a detailer who has been active and working for a long time. Nothing about their history or standing overrides it. Getting new offers again means renewing whatever expired and getting it re-approved.