Personal guarantees: what a builder puts at risk
A company limits what its owners lose, but a personal guarantee can switch that protection off. Here is how guarantees work for builders and directors, what decides their size and what to check before you sign one.
11 min read
Topic
Business
Articles and news about Business for Australian builders.
Personal guarantees: what a builder puts at risk
A company limits what its owners lose, but a personal guarantee can switch that protection off. Here is how guarantees work for builders and directors, what decides their size and what to check before you sign one.
11 min read
Sole trader or company: choosing a business structure as a builder
A sole trader or a company decides who is liable, who holds the licence and how the business can grow, long before it decides the tax. This article sets out the questions to answer first.
11 min read
How the residential construction industry is structured, and where your business sits in it
The residential construction industry is not one market. It is a stack of tiers with different customers, different cash cycles and different failure modes. Knowing which tier you sit in, and which one you are actually competing against, decides where your margin comes from.
12 min read
Measuring whether a digital tool improved your productivity
Most builders buy a tool, feel busy, and never find out whether it helped. Measurement is not administration — it is how you decide what to keep paying for.
11 min read
Pipeline risk: when one client is most of your turnover
Dependence on a single developer or referrer rarely shows up as a crisis. It shows up as a slow loss of pricing power and payment terms, and by the time it is obvious the pipeline has already narrowed.
11 min read
Cyber security for builders: protecting your business data and payment details
Your quotes, contracts, payroll records and bank details are the assets a cyber criminal wants. This is how to lock them down without turning your office into an IT department.
11 min read
Practical automation for the builder’s office: what to automate and what to leave alone
Automation in a building business pays off in the office long before it pays off on site. Here is how to pick the admin tasks worth automating, and how to keep the records and privacy obligations that sit behind them.
12 min read
Running CPD for a building business with several licence holders
CPD attaches to individuals, not to the company licence. Once a business has more than one contractor licence holder or qualified supervisor certificate holder, the obligation becomes an administrative system, and it has to survive staff turnover.
11 min read
Auditing your builder tool stack: how to cull software that does not pay
Most builders accumulate software the same way they accumulate gear: one tool at a time, each bought to solve a real problem. The audit is the part nobody schedules, and it is where the money is.
10 min read
Whose CPD is it? Company licences, directors and nominated supervisors
A company licence can hold the contracting entity, but it cannot hold the CPD. The obligation attaches to the individuals named on it, and each of them has to earn their own points every year.
11 min read