Zoho for Construction Companies in Australia: A Cash Flow and Compliance Blueprint for 2026
Summary:
Australian construction has strong demand but weak working capital discipline, evidenced by 3,472 corporate insolvencies in FY2025-26 despite improving industry sentiment. Three regulatory shifts, including Victoria’s security of payment reforms, Queensland’s paused project trust rollout, and expanded Payment Times Reporting, have raised the cost of managing claims, variations, and retention manually across spreadsheets and email. The article breaks down where the claim-to-payment cycle typically breaks: slow progress claims, unpriced variations, backlogged subcontractor claims, lost retention, late job costing, untracked defects, expiring compliance documents and an unclear tender pipeline. It then lays out a Zoho blueprint, covering CRM, Creator, Books, Analytics and related apps, mapped to each stage of the construction cash cycle, with payroll and estimating tools staying outside the Zoho stack. It closes with how Xponential Digital implements this setup for Australian construction businesses, tailoring it to each project’s contract and jurisdiction.
Australian construction recorded 3,472 corporate insolvencies in the 2025 to 2026 financial year, out of 14,152 across all industries. Total insolvencies fell year on year from 14,722, and construction posted some of its strongest NAB business survey readings in years. Demand was not the problem.
Construction failures in Australia are working capital failures, and working capital here is governed by one cycle: claim, certify, schedule, pay, retain, release. Every week it slips, the business funds another party’s project from its own balance sheet. Most contractors run that cycle across a spreadsheet, an accounting package and an email inbox. Three regulatory changes have raised the cost of doing so. This is where Zoho for construction companies in Australia offers a structured alternative to spreadsheets and email.
What changed
| Change | Status | Effect on practice |
|---|---|---|
| Victorian security of payment reforms | Commenced 15 April 2026 | The excluded amounts regime has been removed, so variations, latent conditions and time-related costs are no longer automatically excluded from payment claims. Claims may be served up to six months after practical completion. Payment terms are capped at 20 business days. Payment schedules are due within 10 business days and must state the reasons for the scheduled amount. Business day counts exclude 22 December to 10 January. |
| Queensland project trust accounts | Rollout paused February 2025 | The phases extending trusts to eligible contracts of $3 million or more and $1 million or more were deferred. Obligations continue for eligible Queensland Government contracts of $1 million or more and other eligible contracts of $10 million or more |
| Payment Times Reporting Amendment Act 2024 | Commenced 7 September 2024 | Reporting entities with annual consolidated revenue of $100 million or more report their payment performance. Entities can be identified as slow small business payers when they meet the scheme's slow-payment criteria, including being in the slowest 20 per cent and having a 95th-percentile payment time above 30 days. |
A head contractor receiving forty claims in a week has forty assessments to complete within the payment schedule deadline. A variation agreed verbally on site may still be claimable, but without proper records it can be much harder to support the amount being claimed.
Where the cycle breaks
The pain points below are common across Australian construction businesses of this size. They are not just general complaints. Each one creates a real operational or cash flow issue.
Progress claims take too long to prepare
A commercial manager may have to check the contract, site records, purchase orders and the previous claim before sending one out. When this is done for every project, it takes a lot of time. A claim that goes out late can then fall into the next payment cycle. Two days late can mean waiting another month for the money.
Variations are agreed first and priced later
A supervisor is told to do extra work, so the work starts. The price is worked out later. By then, the instruction may only be in a phone call, text message or photo. The people involved may have changed too. In Victoria, variations and time-related costs are no longer automatically excluded from payment claims, so keeping proper records is more important.
Subcontractor claims pile up
Claims come in by email, spreadsheets and different forms. Each one needs to be checked against the subcontract, work completed, retention, back charges and defects. The payment schedule then has to be sent within the required time. When twenty or thirty claims arrive together, it becomes easy for something to be missed. A weak payment schedule can also cause problems later.
Retention money gets lost in spreadsheets
Money may be held back from each subcontractor claim and released later, depending on the contract. With projects running for months or years, it is easy to lose track of those dates. Some businesses only find old retention amounts when they go back through completed projects.
Job costs are checked too late
Purchase orders and subcontract commitments tell you what a project is likely to cost, even before all the invoices arrive. If those numbers are kept in different places, the real position may not be clear until month-end. By then, a project may have already lost a large part of its margin.
Defects have no clear owner
After handover, defect requests can come through email, phone calls or messages. Without one place to record them, it is easy to lose track of who needs to fix what and by when. This can also affect retention and security release dates.
Compliance documents expire without warning
Insurance certificates, workers’ compensation details, licences, inductions and safe work method statements all need to stay current. Without reminders, an expired document may only be noticed when a subcontractor is about to start work.
The tender pipeline is hard to track
Estimators usually know what they are working on, but it can be harder to see the bigger picture. How many tenders are open? How much work is waiting for a decision? Which clients are giving the best results? Why were the last few bids lost? Without this information in one place, tender decisions can end up being based on memory.
The Zoho Blueprint for Australian Construction
The changes above come down to one thing: construction businesses need a clear record of their claims, variations, payments, retention and compliance documents. When all of this sits across emails, spreadsheets and different systems, it is easy for something to get missed.
A Zoho setup for construction businesses brings these areas together without forcing everything into the same application. CRM handles tenders and contracts, Creator covers construction-specific processes, Books looks after accounting and purchasing, and Analytics brings the numbers together for reporting.
| Stage | Application | What the system holds |
|---|---|---|
| Tender pipeline | Zoho CRM | Tender stages, project type and procurement method. Win rate by client and estimator, and submitted value awaiting decision |
| Contract setup | Zoho CRM with Zoho Sign | Contract sum, jurisdiction, payment terms, retention cap, practical completion and defects liability dates, with key dates recorded from the contract |
| Progress claims | Zoho Creator with Zoho Books | Claim schedule by trade, percentage complete, variations, retention,and due dates based on the contract and applicable rules. Photographs and instructions attach to the claim line |
| Variations | Zoho Creator with Zoho Forms | Instruction date, instructing person, pricing and approval evidence, captured on a phone at the point of instruction |
| Subcontract claims | Zoho Creator with Zoho Books | Subcontract register, claim assessment,response deadline based on the date the claim is received, and a schedule with a structured reasons field |
| Retention ledger | Zoho Creator and Zoho Analytics | Retention by project, subcontract and claim, with alerts ahead of each release date |
| Purchasing and job costing | Zoho Books with Zoho Inventory | Purchase orders as committed cost against cost codes. Budget, committed, actual and forecast cost, updated as new transactions are entered. |
| Defects and compliance | Zoho Desk, Creator and People | Defect tickets tracked through the defects liability period plus expiry monitoring on licences and insurance documents. |
| Reporting | Zoho Analytics | Claim calendar, retention release schedule, committed versus actual by cost code, debtor ageing by project |
What stays outside Zoho
Payroll remains in a local system that handles Australian payroll requirements, since Zoho Payroll does not currently have an Australian edition. Estimating software, critical path scheduling and any required document control systems can also stay in place.
How Xponential Digital Implements
Xponential Digital, as a Zoho consulting partner in Australia helps regional businesses streamline operations by tailoring Zoho’s cloud ecosystem to their specific operational goals. Setup starts by moving progress claims, variations, and retention out of spreadsheets and email, and into one system. Instead of a separate tracker for every project, everything gets built around how the business already works. The setup also follows each project’s contract and the state or territory it’s in. Payment terms and requirements shift across Australia, so the rules and dates get recorded project by project. Each project shows what’s due, what’s been submitted, and what backs up each claim.
| Phase | Scope | Measurable change |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Contract register, progress claims, variations, claim calendar, accounting integration | Claims served on time. Assembly falls from hours to minutes, and days sales outstanding moves |
| 2 | Subcontract register, claim assessment, payment schedules, retention ledger | Statutory deadlines met with evidenced schedules. Retention released on trigger dates |
| 3 | Purchase orders, committed cost, cost codes, job costing | Project margin visible during the project |
| 4 | Tender pipeline, compliance monitoring, defects in Zoho Desk | Bid capacity allocated on win rate. Expired insurance flagged before site access |
| 5 | Zoho Analytics reporting layer and adoption review | Claim calendar and cost control reviewed weekly |
FAQs
Can Zoho handle progress claims and payment schedules for Australian construction?
Yes. Progress claims, variation registers, subcontractor claim assessments and retention ledgers can be built in Zoho Creator and connected with Zoho CRM and Zoho Books.
What changed in Victoria on 15 April 2026?
The excluded amounts regime was removed, so variations, latent conditions and time related costs are claimable. Claims may be served up to six months after practical completion, payment terms are capped at 20 business days, and a payment schedule must state every reason relevant to the scheduled amount.
Does Zoho replace Xero or MYOB?
Zoho can work alongside Xero or MYOB, so a business does not have to replace its existing accounting system. Zoho can manage areas such as claims, variations, retentions and committed project costs, with the accounting platform connected to the wider workflow.
Can Zoho run Australian payroll?
No. Zoho Payroll is offered in selected country editions and Australia is not among them. Payroll stays local and integrates with Zoho for employee and cost data.
Talk to a Zoho partner who builds for construction
Xponential Digital works with Australian construction and trade businesses on Zoho implementations covering progress claims, variations, subcontractor packages, retention and job costing. To see how Zoho fits construction workflows in Australia, or to discuss a scoped phase one built around your claim cycle.
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