One crane, three systems, one billing truth.
Crane hire admin is the docket: who lifted what, for how long, with which operator and ticket, billed at which rate, under which entity. Kindra is engaged with a crane hire group; the engagement details are not published. This page sets out the published Queensland regime, the admin shape and the build we propose.
What this page is, and what it is not
Kindra has a plant and crane hire client. We have not published the engagement details, the metrics or a quote from them, and we are not going to imply results here by describing an anonymised business in suspiciously specific terms.
What this page is instead is an industry case file: the published facts about how crane hire in Queensland is regulated and paid, the admin shape those facts produce, and the build we propose for that shape. Where a client-specific result belongs, the page says so and marks it as not yet published.
That is a weaker page than one with measured numbers on it. It is a stronger page than one with invented ones, and when the measurements exist they will replace the placeholders with their sample period attached.
The industry in numbers
Crane hire is a $2.0 billion industry with no dominant player, on IBISWorld figures from August 2025. It counted 1,789 businesses in crane rental services in 2025, growing 3.5% a year since 2020, with revenue expected to fall 2.4% in 2025–26 to $2.0 billion and no company holding more than 5% of the market. Demand tracks major projects, mining and the energy transition — wind farms and transmission lines.
Rental, hiring and real estate services business counts grew 3.7% in the year to June 2026 (ABS Counts of Australian Businesses, released 18 August 2026). The customers are mostly construction, which had 3,472 company insolvencies in 2025–26 — the worst of any industry again (ASIC data reported by Accountants Daily, 22 July 2026). A crane hire business carries its customers’ cash flow risk on every docket it has not yet invoiced.
Payment is slow. Small businesses were paid 22.9 days after invoicing in the June quarter 2026, 6.0 days late on average (Xero Small Business Insights, 30 July 2026); large businesses paying small ones took 27.4 days with the slowest 5% at 64 days (Payment Times Reporting Regulator, first half of 2025, published January 2026). Hire is invoiced after the lift, so every day between docket and invoice is added to those.
The regime: who may operate what, and what must be registered
Every lift needs a ticket that matches the crane, a crane that is registered and inspected, and a permit if it is driving to site. All three have dates, and the dates are what a system should carry.
- KNDR·01High risk work licence classesSlewing mobile crane licences run C2 (up to 20 tonnes), C6 (up to 60), C1 (up to 100) and C0 (over 100 tonnes); each class also covers non-slewing mobile cranes (CN), vehicle loading cranes (CV) and reach stackers (WorkSafe Queensland). Dogging is a separate class. An operator on a 70-tonne all-terrain needs C1 or C0, not C6.
- KNDR·02Plant registrationMobile cranes with a rated capacity greater than 10 tonnes and all tower cranes, including self-erecting, must be registered; registrations are renewed annually, a tower crane of not more than 10 tonnes costs $213.46, and fees rose 3.4% on 1 July 2026 (WorkSafe Queensland, plant registration; costs to register plant).
- KNDR·03The 10-year major inspectionMobile and tower cranes must have a major inspection every 10 years from first commissioning or first registration, whichever came first — the crane stripped down, paint, grease and corrosion removed, all critical components examined (WorkSafe Queensland). When Queensland audited 139 cranes in 2008, 17 inspections were unsatisfactory and 28 cranes needed enforcement action (WHSQ audit report, February 2009).
- KNDR·04CraneSafeUnder AS 1418 and AS 2550 every crane needs an annual inspection by a competent independent third party; CICA’s CraneSafe program issues the green sticker that customers and site managers look for. A fleet of 30 cranes is 30 sticker dates.
- KNDR·05Road accessUnder the NHVR’s National Class 1 Special Purpose Vehicle notice, truck cranes and articulated steering cranes up to 40 tonnes gross mass can travel without a permit within 4.6 metres high, 3.5 metres wide and 14.5 metres long; the current notice started 16 August 2026 and expires 15 August 2031 (NHVR operator’s guide). Anything heavier or wider is a permit with a lead time.
The admin shape: dockets, hire schedule, wet hire and dry hire
Wet hire supplies the crane and the operator; dry hire supplies the crane and the customer finds the operator. In a wet hire the supplier carries liability for the operator’s actions and the hirer for its own staff (Cranes & Lifting, Understanding wet and dry hire). The two produce different dockets, different rates and different insurance questions, often on the same day from the same yard.
The docket is the unit of truth. It records the crane, the operator and dogman, start and finish, travel, standby, and the customer’s signature, and it is the only document that says what actually happened on site. Under the Mobile Crane Hiring Award 2020 a casual is engaged for a minimum of 4 hours a day and every employee gets a travel allowance of $21.94 a day (Fair Work Ombudsman, MA000032, 1 July 2024 figures — check the current pay guide), so the docket also decides what the day cost you before it decides what to bill.
The hire schedule is the plan the docket departs from. A group running several entities — a hire company, a transport company, a labour entity — books a lift once and bills it from whichever entity owns the crane, the truck and the operator. That is where three systems meet and usually where the invoice goes wrong. Quote to invoice is the generic version; crane hire is that flow with a signed docket in the middle and a compliance register underneath.
Getting paid: the clock most hire businesses do not run
If your hire is on a construction contract in Queensland, the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 timelines may apply: a payment schedule due within the earlier of the contract period or 15 business days of a payment claim, payment due 10 business days after the claim where the contract is silent, and adjudication within 30 business days where no schedule was given (Holding Redlich’s guide to the BIF Act). Whether a particular hire agreement falls inside the Act is a question for your lawyer; the answer changes your chasing calendar.
Outside that, the numbers are the general ones — 22.9 days to be paid and 6.0 days late for small businesses in the June quarter 2026 (Xero Small Business Insights, 30 July 2026), with the construction customers that make up most of a crane book among the slower payers. Debtor chasing for a hire business is mostly a matter of invoicing the day the docket is signed and reminding on the terms without anyone having to remember.
The wage side is fixed and the revenue side is not. ABS Average Weekly Earnings puts full-time adult ordinary earnings at $2,083.70 a week in May 2026; an operator, a dogman and a truck are paid for the day whether the docket was invoiced that night or three weeks later.
The build we propose for this flow
Docket to invoice across entities, with a compliance register underneath. Built on the accounting package the group already runs — we have built against Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks Online — and on n8n for the joins. We have not built against any crane-specific hire product, and we say so.
- KNDR·01Docket capture and sign-offThe docket completed on the phone at the end of the lift, signed by the customer on site, with crane, operator ticket class, times, travel and standby as structured fields. Wet or dry set on the booking, not remembered on the invoice.
- KNDR·02Hire schedule to docket to invoiceThe booking creates the expected docket; the signed docket creates the invoice lines at the agreed rates in the right entity; the invoice reaches Xero the same day. The gap between docket and invoice is the first number we would measure.
- KNDR·03Multi-entity billing from one jobOne lift, invoiced from the hire entity, the transport entity and the labour entity as the contracts require, with inter-entity charges generated rather than reconciled later.
- KNDR·04The compliance register with datesEvery operator’s licence classes and expiry, every crane’s registration renewal, CraneSafe sticker date and 10-year major inspection date, every NHVR permit and notice condition — and a rule that a booking cannot be confirmed for a crane and operator whose dates do not cover the lift.
- KNDR·05Reminders on termsDebtor follow-up on the agreed terms, escalating, with the BIF Act dates flagged for the jobs where the Act applies.
What has been measured, and what has not
Nothing on this page is a measured result from the engagement. The two metrics the case file was designed around are below, marked honestly.
- KNDR·01Billing cycle time — days from signed docket to invoice sentNot yet published — measured on a live engagement, ask on the call.
- KNDR·02Invoice dispute rate — share of invoices queried or creditedNot yet published — measured on a live engagement, ask on the call.
- KNDR·03Bookings blocked by an expired licence, registration or inspectionNot yet published — measured on a live engagement, ask on the call.
- KNDR·04Days to be paid, against the 22.9-day national figureNot yet published — measured on a live engagement, ask on the call.
Whether this applies to you
If you run one or two cranes and the owner is the operator, buy a hire management product and use its invoicing; a build is premature and we would say so on the call. If you run a fleet across more than one entity, bill wet and dry hire from the same yard, and your dockets reach the invoice a week late, the flow above is yours.
The build is scoped in two-week increments with a fixed price for each — how we work — and you own the code, the data and the server at the end — ownership and security sets out exactly what that means. How we charge has the numbers.
The first call is 20 minutes and costs nothing. Bring a week of dockets and the invoices they became.
The questions people actually ask.
01Our operation is different.
Your cranes and your customers are. The flow is not: booking, docket, sign-off, invoice, chase, with a licence class and a registration date under every lift. The build is around that flow and the register. Your rates, your entities and your dockets are configuration.
02How long did it take?
Not published for this engagement. Client builds run in two-week increments with a fixed price per increment; the docket and hire-schedule record is typically the first increment, and you decide after each one whether to continue.
03Why is there no client name or result on a page called a case file?
Because we have no written permission to name them and no published measured result. We would rather publish the regime, the flow and the build honestly than an anonymised story with numbers we cannot show you the source of. When the measurements are published they will be here with their sample period.
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.