Claims up the chain, obligations down the chain.

You are the claimant on one contract and the respondent on a dozen others, in the same week, on the same job. Paystruct runs both directions against the contract they belong to.

Create an account See the dates it counts

Your first contract is free.

Claimant upward, respondent downward, in the same week

Your claim to the principal goes out against one reference date. The claims from below arrive on their own dates, each starting a clock that runs whether or not anyone has opened the email.

Claiming up

The head contract claim carries the formality: the reference date under that contract, work identified so a superintendent can assess it line by line, and the supporting statement served with it.

Assessing down

Every claim that arrives from a subcontractor starts a response period. A payment schedule is due by the earlier of the period in that subcontract and 15 business days after the claim was given.

Retention both ways

Cash and guarantees held from your subcontractors, and your own security held by the principal. Two positions, and they only agree with each other on purpose.

Many contracts at once

One project can be twenty subcontracts with different reference dates, response periods and retention terms. Those terms belong to the contract, not to anyone's memory of it.

The schedule is the cheapest document on the job

It costs an hour to prepare properly. Not giving one, or giving one that says nothing useful, is what turns an argued claim into a paid one.

The schedule has to identify the claim it responds to and state the amount you propose to pay.
Where that amount is less than the amount claimed, it has to say why.
Where you are withholding payment, your reasons for withholding belong in the schedule.
Reasons left out are generally not available to you afterwards: an adjudication response cannot introduce reasons the schedule did not carry.
If no schedule is given and the claim is not paid by the due date, the claimant can pursue the amount as a debt or apply for adjudication, and in that debt proceeding the Act limits the defences and counterclaims a respondent can raise about matters arising under the contract.
Paystruct dates each claim on receipt, counts the response period in business days, and produces the schedule as a document with an assessment against every line.

Business days in Queensland exclude weekends, public holidays and the period from 22 December to 10 January, which is why December claims catch people out. See how the dates are counted.

One record per contract, both directions

The head contract and each subcontract are set up once, with their own terms. After that the month is the same shape every time.

Create an account

Set up the contracts

Parties, reference dates, retention, security, permitted service methods and the schedule of works. Upload each contract and have the terms read out of it, or enter them.

Claim up on the reference date

Progress, variations and adjustments against the head contract, with the supporting statement produced alongside the claim and served as attachment one.

Assess what arrives

Each subcontractor claim is dated on receipt, assessed line by line with reasons, and answered with a payment schedule inside the response period.

Keep the positions straight

Payments made and received, retention withheld and released, securities and their expiry dates, all against the contract they belong to.

The statement that has to go with the claim

A head contractor's payment claim to the principal has to be accompanied by a supporting statement about whether the subcontractors have been paid. Giving a claim without one is an offence, and giving one that is known to be false is a more serious one.

Produced with the claim

Paystruct builds the statement alongside the claim, as a statutory declaration with the Queensland heading and jurat, and serves it as attachment one so it cannot be left sitting in a drafts folder.

Answered by you

The declaration is about your subcontractors, so the answers have to be yours. Where amounts are outstanding, they are identified rather than glossed over, because that is the part a court would read closely.

Kept with the claim

The statement served with each claim stays attached to that claim in the record, with the date it was signed and by whom.

Whether a missing supporting statement also costs you the claim is contested ground, and it is the sort of question a lawyer answers on your facts. The working position is simpler: serve it every time. See what a claim pack contains.

Retention held both ways

You withhold retention from below and have it withheld from you above, on different percentages, different caps and different release dates. Queensland also has a statutory trust framework sitting over some contracts, covering project trusts and trusts for cash retention. Whether it reaches a particular contract turns on the type of work, the parties, the value and when the contract was entered into, and those thresholds have moved more than once.

Paystruct does not administer trust accounts and does not decide whether a trust is required for your job. Take advice on the contract in front of you. What Paystruct does is keep the record: what is held, when it is due back, and what notices have been given.

See the security register

Cash retention withheld from each subcontractor claim, at that subcontract's percentage and cap
Your own retention withheld by the principal, tracked on the same footing
Bank guarantees and insurance bonds, with the issuer, the amount and the expiry
Release dates for each part, taken from the contract rather than recalled
Notices about a retention trust recorded against the contract they relate to
A running position for what is held, what has been released, and what is still to come back

Software, not a law firm

Paystruct is built to the Queensland Act and the cases decided under it. It shows its reasoning, and it is candid about the questions it cannot answer.

Read the guides

It does not give legal advice, and nothing on this site is legal advice. No software can promise that a claim you serve is valid, or that a schedule you give will hold. What it can do is make sure the document exists, that it went out in time, and that the record of it is there. Get a lawyer involved for:

A claim being contested, up the chain or down it
A final claim, where the windows differ and the whole job is in the number
A contract that has been terminated, or a party showing signs of insolvency
Any adjudication, whether you are the applicant or the respondent

On a job of any size, advice taken in the response period costs less than advice taken after it.

Common questions

Our subcontracts all have different response periods. Does that work?

Yes, because the period is read from each contract. Paystruct applies the earlier of the period that subcontract allows and 15 business days after the claim was given, counted with Queensland public holidays and the December shutdown, and shows the date on the claim rather than in someone's diary.

What happens if I miss a payment schedule?

The consequences are statutory, not administrative: the claimant can pursue the claimed amount as a debt or apply for adjudication, and in that debt proceeding the Act limits the defences and counterclaims you can raise about matters arising under the contract. Paystruct will tell you the date has passed. It will not pretend that is a paperwork problem, and you should get advice quickly.

Does Paystruct decide whether my contract needs a project trust or a retention trust?

No. Whether the trust framework applies depends on the contract type, the parties, the value and the date, and it is not a judgement software should make for you. Paystruct records what security is held and what notices have been given, so the question can be answered from the file by someone qualified to answer it.

Can I run the head contract and the subcontracts in one place?

Yes. Each contract is its own record with its own parties, terms, template and history. Claims you make and claims made on you sit against the contract they belong to, and the dashboard shows what is due across all of them. If several people in your organisation need access, talk to us.

Set up your first contract

Easy to use. Have a claim ready to serve today.

Get started Talk to us