What is your construction back-office really costing you?
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
About this tool
Construction Back-Office Cost Calculator
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.
How it works
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.
Who it’s for
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.
- In construction the back-office is award-led: most underpayment risk comes from Building and Construction Award classifications, site allowances and travel/tool allowances rather than base pay, so getting classification right is where the money is.
- The single largest hidden exposure for most trades businesses is subcontractor classification — subbies who don't genuinely pass the ATO contractor test can create back-pay, superannuation and workers' compensation liability, so the tool flags this as a priority to verify.
- Owner admin time is a real cost, not a free input: valuing the hours you personally absorb at your own hourly rate across a working year usually reveals the fastest payback from shifting routine back-office work to a system or specialist.
Frequently asked questions
Are the dollar figures in my result real penalties I'll have to pay?
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.
Why does the tool ask about my subcontractors separately?
Because in construction, subcontractor arrangements are the area most likely to be reclassified. If a person the business treats as an independent subbie is really working as an employee under the ATO's contractor test and the sham-contracting provisions, that can trigger back-payment of superannuation, PAYG and workers' compensation. The tool asks how many regular subbies you use and whether you're confident they pass the test, and if that box is left unticked it adds an indicative exposure to reflect the potential liability — a signal to verify classifications, nothing more.
Does this include the compliance obligations specific to building, or just generic bookkeeping?
It's built specifically for construction. Alongside standard bookkeeping and payroll costs, it covers the areas that are unique to the industry: Building and Construction Award classifications and site allowances, portable redundancy fund contributions such as BUSSQ or Incolink, WHS documentation and Safe Work Method Statements for high-risk work, workers' compensation classifications, travel and tool allowances, and professional indemnity cover tied to your builder's licence. That's the point of a trade-specific tool rather than a generic cost calculator.