The short answer
A compliance register is a single list of every licence, ticket, insurance, policy and inspection your business depends on, with the holder, the expiry date and a copy of the document, checked against a warning date so someone is told 90, 60 and 30 days before it lapses. For a NSW trade business it usually sits in four groups: the business, the people, the plant and the subcontractors.
Group 1: the business
These are the items a head contractor, a council or a portal such as Cm3, Rapid Global or Avetta will ask for first. Contractor licence from Building Commission NSW (renewed through Service NSW) for building, electrical or plumbing work (individual and company licences have different numbers and different renewal dates). Public liability insurance, usually A$10m or A$20m, with the certificate of currency dated within the last 12 months. Workers compensation policy through icare or a specialised insurer, renewed annually. ABN and business name registration with ASIC (business names renew every one or three years). Any trade-specific registration: electrical contractor licence, plumbing licence, asbestos removal licence from SafeWork NSW, or NSW Point to Point authorisation or NHVR heavy vehicle accreditation (national, voluntary) where relevant. Safety documents with a review date: WHS policy, safe work method statements, and the drug and alcohol, environmental and quality policies that portals ask for.
Group 2: the people
Every worker carries their own dated set. General construction induction (white card), which has no expiry date in NSW but becomes invalid if the holder has not done construction work for two consecutive years, and must be produced on request. High risk work licences from SafeWork NSW for forklift, boom-type EWP (boom 11 m or more), dogging, rigging, scaffolding and crane classes; these run five years. First aid certificates: HLTAID011 is treated as current for three years, and the CPR component (HLTAID009) is expected annually. Traffic control training cards from SafeWork NSW: current if the worker trained in the last two years or has kept doing that type of traffic control work, so a two-year break means retraining. Working With Children Checks from the NSW Office of the Children's Guardian (five years) for workers whose job at schools or childcare sites involves more than incidental contact with children; from 1 September 2026 NSW public schools also require a paid NSW check before a contractor comes on site. Driver licences, including the class needed for the trucks you run. Trade qualifications and any supervisor or tradesperson certificate. Site-specific inductions, which many head contractors expire after 12 months.
Group 3: the plant
Vehicle registrations and CTP. Plant registered with SafeWork NSW: design registration (boom-type EWPs, some prefabricated scaffolding; it doesn't renew) and item registration (tower cranes, larger mobile cranes, lifts; renewed every year, so those dates go in the register). Inspection and service dates: test and tag for electrical tools (three-monthly on construction sites), annual EWP inspections, ten-year major inspections on some plant, scaffold handover certificates, and lifting gear inspections. Calibration dates on testing equipment.
Group 4: the subcontractors
For each subcontractor you use, the same business items as Group 1: licence, public liability, workers compensation or evidence of sole-trader status, and their SWMS. A common gap is a subcontractor whose insurance lapsed months ago while the head contractor still holds the original certificate on file.
What "keeping it current" actually takes
A register only works if three things are true. Every item has a warning date and a named person who is told, not just a column that turns red. New tickets reach the register from the ute, through a short form that takes a photo of the card, so the office is not typing from text messages. And the document copy is stored next to the row, so when a portal asks for evidence you send the file rather than searching email. In practice that is a Google Sheet or Excel workbook with a form in front of it and a small script or Power Automate flow that sends the warnings; no new software, and the crew never has to log into anything.
Specific questions
How to track white card and high risk work licence expiry for a crew · How to track subcontractor insurance and licence certificates · Tracking vehicle registration, plant inspections and test and tag
How Stewart Systems sets this up
Stewart Systems, a business systems consultancy in Wollongong, builds this register inside a client's own Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 account, with warnings at 90, 60 and 30 days, a crew form for new tickets, and the document set mapped to each portal the business is on. It starts with a free 30-minute Snapshot that lists what the business currently holds and what has already lapsed.
Written by Christian Stewart, Stewart Systems, Wollongong. Published 2026-09-29. Records and flags, not legal, WHS or insurance advice.
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