The progress claim has a date on it. The date is the whole point.
A building business runs on progress claims, variations and contracts with statutory timelines. Under Queensland’s BIF Act a payment schedule is due within 15 business days, and 3,472 construction companies failed in 2025–26. Automation that watches those dates, and carries variations onto claims, is what pays.
The published shape of the industry — every figure dated
- Construction insolvencies 2025–26
- 3,472 of 14,152 (ASIC data reported by Accountants Daily, 22 July 2026)
- Dwellings approved, July 2026
- 17,687, down 3.6% (ABS Building Approvals, released 1 September 2026)
- Construction jobs
- 1,356,800, March quarter 2026 (ABS Labour Account)
- Payment schedule window
- 15 business days (Holding Redlich’s guide to the BIF Act)
- Max deposit, Level 2 contract
- 5% (QBCC)
- Days paid late
- 6.0 days, June quarter 2026 (Xero Small Business Insights, 30 July 2026)
None of these are Kindra measurements. Each links to the document it came from.
The industry in numbers, and why the admin is different
Building is the industry where the paperwork has legal deadlines and the cash arrives last. That combination is why it fails more companies than any other.
ASIC data reported by Accountants Daily put 3,472 construction companies into external administration in 2025–26 — the worst-hit industry again — out of 14,152 insolvencies nationally, a slight improvement on 14,722 the year before (published 22 July 2026). The pipeline is softening at the same time: total dwellings approved fell 3.6% to 17,687 in July 2026, and Queensland fell 13.9% to 4,200, while the value of non-residential building rose 14.4% to $9.93 billion (ABS Building Approvals, released 1 September 2026).
The industry is also overwhelmingly small. Small businesses employ 804,000 of the 1,291,000 people in construction — 62%, the largest small business workforce of any industry — and added $89.6 billion of value, 51% of the total (ASBFEO Small Business Data Portal, 2023–24, published July 2025). Construction held 1,356,800 jobs in the March quarter 2026 (ABS Labour Account). The admin for all of it is done by people who would rather be on site.
Progress claims under the BIF Act: the timelines you are supposed to be using
A progress claim is not an invoice. Under the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 it is a payment claim with a statutory clock, and most small builders do not run the clock.
- KNDR·01Reference dateThe date the contract provides, or the last day of the month work was carried out if it is silent. One claim per reference date (Holding Redlich’s guide to the BIF Act, section 67).
- KNDR·0215 business days for the payment scheduleThe respondent must give a payment schedule within the earlier of the contract period or 15 business days of receiving the claim. If they do not, the full claimed amount becomes due on the due date and they lose the right to raise defences later (sections 76, 77 and 100).
- KNDR·0310 business days to pay by defaultIf the contract does not set a due date, the progress payment is due 10 business days after the claim (section 65). Head contractor terms that require payment more than 15 business days from the principal, or more than 25 business days to a subcontractor, are invalid under the QBCC Act (sections 67U and 67W).
- KNDR·04Adjudication windowsWithin 30 business days of the due date where no schedule was given; within 30 business days of receiving a schedule for a lower amount; within 20 business days where a schedule was given but not paid.
- KNDR·05Trust accountsA trust account framework under the BIF Act commenced on 1 March 2021 for eligible contracts; the QBCC maintains a tool for checking eligibility and requires a single retention trust account across projects where retentions are withheld.
Contracts, deposits and variations: the Schedule 1B rules
Domestic building work over $3,300 needs a written contract that complies with Schedule 1B of the QBCC Act. Level 1 covers $3,301 to $19,999; Level 2 is $20,000 and over. On a Level 2 contract you must give the owner the QBCC consumer building guide before they sign, a signed copy within 5 business days, and a commencement notice within 10 business days of starting (QBCC).
Deposits are capped. 10% on Level 1, 5% on Level 2, and 20% only where more than half the contract price is customised work or prefabrication done off site. Every progress payment must be relative to the work done — you cannot claim more than 50% of the price, deposit included, until at least half the on-site work is finished (QBCC).
Variations must be on the variation form and signed before the work is done. That is the rule the industry breaks most, and it is the rule that costs the most when a job goes to dispute. A variation that is agreed on site and typed up on Sunday is a variation that gets argued about in March.
Licences, SWMS and the reporting that never stops
Your QBCC licence class sets what you can build. A builder — medium rise licence covers building work on class 1 and 10 buildings and up to 3 storeys on other classes excluding Type A construction on classes 4 to 9; the fee for an individual contractor is $920.68 at up to $800,000 annual revenue, $1,180.19 up to $12 million and $1,696.50 above that, plus the minimum financial requirements report or declaration (QBCC). Low rise and open sit either side.
On site, a SWMS is required for any of the 18 high-risk construction work activities — falls of more than 2 metres, demolition, asbestos, work near energised services, excavation — and must be kept for the duration of the work and reviewed after any incident (SafeWork SA). On a house build that is most of the trades, most of the time.
Under the Building and Construction General On-site Award 2020 a CW/ECW 3 tradesperson has a minimum of $1,068.40 a week from the 1 July 2025 variation, and a carpenter carries a $39.60 weekly tool allowance (Fair Work Ombudsman); check the current pay guide for 2026 rates. Small construction businesses paid average wages of $88,700 per employee in building construction in 2023–24 (ABS, released 24 June 2025). A supervisor doing claims on a Sunday is an expensive clerk.
The flows worth automating in a building business
In the order we would propose them to a builder doing $2–20 million a year.
- KNDR·011. Variation to claimVariation captured on site, signed on the phone, priced onto the job and carried onto the next progress claim automatically. Quote to invoice is the residential version of this.
- KNDR·022. The progress claim calendarReference dates per contract, claims generated in the statutory form on the date, payment schedule deadlines tracked, adjudication windows flagged. The BIF Act is a spec; treat it as one.
- KNDR·033. Subcontractor claim intakeIncoming payment claims logged with their 15-business-day clock so you never lose a defence by missing a schedule. Accounts payable with a legal deadline on it.
- KNDR·044. Contract compliance documentsConsumer guide before signing, signed copy within 5 business days, commencement notice within 10 — generated and sent from the contract record. Document generation.
- KNDR·055. Licence, MFR and insurance calendarQBCC renewals, annual MFR reporting, home warranty premiums, trade licences of every sub on site.
Software for builders: buy the platform, build the joins
Most builders should buy a construction management product, not build one, and we say that on a page that sells builds. We have not built against Buildertrend, Procore or Buildxact. Our software for builders comparison ranks what each publishes and marks the products we have no hands-on experience with.
What we have built against is the accounting and automation layer — Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks Online, Simpro, n8n. The build case for a builder is almost always at the joins: the claim that reaches Xero as an invoice with retention handled, the variation that reaches the claim, the deadline that reaches a human before it passes. Custom vs off-the-shelf is the longer argument.
Whatever you buy, get paid faster than the average. Small businesses were paid 22.9 days after invoicing in the June quarter 2026, 6.0 days late (Xero Small Business Insights, 30 July 2026), and large businesses took 27.4 days with the slowest 5% at 64 days (Payment Times Reporting Regulator, January 2026). Builders sit at the slow end of both.
What we have not measured, and what we would measure for you
We have not published a measured hours-per-week figure for building and construction admin, and we are not going to borrow one from a software vendor to make this page more persuasive. Every number above is a published Australian fact with its date attached. None of it is a Kindra measurement.
What we would do on a first call is count it on one of your jobs. Follow a single job from enquiry to paid invoice, note every time a person re-types something or hunts for a signed variation, and multiply by what that person costs you loaded. ABS Average Weekly Earnings puts full-time adult ordinary earnings at $2,083.70 a week in May 2026 — about $55 an hour before the 12% super guarantee the ATO has applied since 1 July 2025 — so the loaded figure is not small. That is a real number about your business, and it takes an afternoon.
If the number comes back under our minimum engagement, that is a real answer too, and you should keep the spreadsheet. The leak calculator runs the same arithmetic in two minutes and returns a range rather than a confident single figure.
The questions people actually ask.
01We use Buildxact and Xero. What would you even build?
Possibly nothing. If variations reach your claims, your claims go out on the reference date and incoming subcontractor claims never miss a schedule, keep both and spend nothing. The build is the calendar and the joins — only if you are losing money to them.
02Our jobs are all different. A system cannot handle that.
The jobs are different. The documents are not. Every job has a contract level, a deposit cap, reference dates, variations and a licence class. A system built around those is not a system built around the job.
03Where is the hours breakdown for builders?
We have not measured it and will not borrow a vendor figure. Every number on this page is a published government, regulator or award fact with a date. We will count your admin on one live job on the first call.
Stop bending.
Start shipping.
Bring the one flow that keeps costing you a Tuesday afternoon. We map it live and tell you what we'd build, what we wouldn't, and what it costs.