Guides
Practical guides for commercial trade contractors.
Written for subcontractors pricing and running commercial work in Australia. The theme running through all of them is the same one that shapes how we work: the numbers you record at the start decide the arguments you can win at the end. No legal advice, no theory, and nothing you would need a degree to act on.
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Victoria · updated July 2026
Security of payment in Victoria: what changed, and what it means for your records
Victoria's security of payment regime changed on 15 April 2026. Excluded amounts and claimable variations were repealed, so delay costs, latent conditions and variations not agreed in writing are no longer shut out of a payment claim. The catch is that a wider set of claimable categories does not help anyone who cannot evidence the claim. This covers what changed and the four records that decide whether a claim survives.
The thread
Why measurement and claims are the same subject.
Most contractors treat the takeoff as a pricing exercise that ends the day the tender goes in. It does not end there. The takeoff is the record of what was agreed to be built, and that record is what every later argument is measured against.
You can only prove a variation sits outside scope if someone measured the scope at the start. You can only prove disruption against planned labour if someone recorded the planned hours. When a final account is argued twelve months after practical completion, the original measured quantities are what it is argued against. Contractors who priced off a rough measure find that out at the worst possible moment, when there is real money on the table and nothing on paper to support it.
That is why these guides sit alongside the measurement work rather than separate from it, and it is why crew hours are included in every takeoff we deliver rather than sold as an extra.
See what a measured baseline includes · How we work with subcontractors
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