Job management for Gold Coast tradies

Built for how Gold Coast tradies work#

• High-rise work is repeat work. Towers, body corporates and holiday letting managers call the same tradies back. Access, parking and contact notes save against the client, so the second callout starts where the first one ended.
• Across the border without a second account. Tweed Heads and the Northern Rivers are a short drive and a different state. Your jobs, quotes and invoices do not care; it is one list either way.
• Subcontract paperwork that stands up. A lot of Gold Coast work is subcontracted to a builder. Clean, dated, itemised invoices are what a payment claim is built on later, so it is worth them being right the first time.

Who licenses trade work in Queensland?#

The Queensland Building and Construction Commission. Queensland licenses from a low value threshold, so a surprising amount of small work is licensable here that would not be elsewhere, and the licence number has to travel with your paperwork.

• Most building work above a modest value needs a QBCC licence in the right class before you contract for it.
• Your licence number belongs on your contracts, quotes and advertising, not just in a drawer.
• QBCC licences carry financial requirements that scale with your turnover, so growing past a band is a licensing event as well as an accounting one.

Source: QBCC: licences

Who decides a Queensland payment dispute?#

An adjudicator appointed through the QBCC, not a court. Adjudication under the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 is the enforcement half of the payment claim process, and it is the reason the claim is worth making properly in the first place.

• Adjudication is faster and cheaper than litigation, and produces a decision you can enforce.
• The QBCC registers adjudicators and runs the application process itself, rather than leaving it to private nominating authorities.
• There are time limits on applying, and they run from the events in the claim rather than from when you decide to act.

Source: QBCC: adjudication

What are Queensland project and retention trust accounts?#

Queensland requires head contractors on covered projects to hold progress payments and retention in statutory trust accounts rather than in their own working capital. If you subcontract to a builder on a covered project, this is the regime standing between your invoice and their cash flow.

• A project trust account holds the money for paying subcontractors; a retention trust account holds retained amounts.
• Which projects are covered has been phased in over time, so the answer depends on the contract date and value.
• The QBCC publishes the current coverage rules and the head contractor's reporting duties.

Source: QBCC: trust accounts