Add up bookkeeping, payroll, the admin hours you absorb yourself, and the indicative exposure from award and compliance gaps, then see where the hidden cost really sits. Built for SME builders and trades.
Takes ~5 minutes · All figures stay in your browser until you choose to share them
Total Cost
Direct + owner time, all-in
Cost Breakdown
Where the money goes
Compliance Gaps
Indicative award exposure
Where to Optimise
Practical next steps
Running a construction or trades business means the back-office rarely sits still. Between bookkeeping, payroll, the Building and Construction General On-site Award, portable redundancy schemes, WHS paperwork and the ever-present question of whether your subbies are genuinely independent, a lot of cost and risk hides in places that never show up on a job invoice. Much of it lands on the owner personally — the admin hours you absorb after hours, the compliance areas you half-know need checking. The Construction Back-Office Cost Calculator is a free tool that pulls those scattered costs into one picture so you can see what your back-office is really costing you each year, in dollars and in exposure.
You enter your own numbers — trade type, state, headcount, regular subcontractors, revenue, active job sites — plus your current back-office spend on bookkeeping, payroll and any HR/IR advice, and the admin hours you personally put in each week at your own hourly rate. You then tick off the construction-specific compliance areas you're confident you manage well: award classification and site allowances, portable redundancy fund contributions, the ATO contractor test, current WHS documentation and SWMS for high-risk work, travel and tool allowances, workers' compensation classifications and professional indemnity cover. The tool values your admin time across a working year, then treats anything you leave unticked as an indicative exposure, weighting it by severity. It returns a single total annual back-office cost, a breakdown of where that money and time sit, a ranked list of the compliance gaps worth verifying, and practical prompts for where to optimise. Every dollar figure attached to a gap is an indicative order-of-magnitude estimate to help you prioritise — not a quoted penalty, a survey figure, or legal advice.
Owners of Australian SME builders and trades businesses who want a clear, honest view of what their back-office costs — in direct spend, absorbed owner time, and compliance exposure — before deciding what to fix first.
The short answers are here. For anything else, ask below or get in touch.
No. The dollar figures attached to each compliance gap are indicative order-of-magnitude estimates used only to help you rank what to check first — they are not quoted penalties, published averages, or a prediction of what will happen to your business. Actual obligations and any penalties depend on the current Modern Award, ATO rules, your state's laws and your specific circumstances, which change over time. Treat your result as a prompt to get particular areas verified by a qualified adviser, not as legal or financial advice.
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