Hi Rod,
Search this forum for some recent (last month) discussions about what fields to search.
I think it is not necessary to present all database field as search fields in the UI. Only Contractor Name and Location are required. I decided to add Service too, since the business scenario seemed to point that it was an item of interest of the users.
For number of employees, hour rate and customer ID, there is not the slightest hint in the instructions that these are needed. You will probably not be penalized for making them searchable, but it won't give you extra credit neither.
You also mention dialogs for updating and creating records. The instructions don't seem to require those. Think again if you really need those. The mere fact that you have to implement a create() method does not mean that this method must be used by your UI.
Frans.