Running a Bricklaying Business in Australia
You completed the job on time. The brickwork is excellent — tight joints, clean reveals, good colour consistency. The builder's standard payment terms are 60 days from end of month of invoice. Your invoice went in on the 15th of the month. That means 75 days from job completion before you're paid. Your crew wages go out every fortnight. The materials were delivered on credit. You've done everything right and the cashflow is still strangling you.
What a bricklaying business looks like
The cashflow crunch and how to manage it
60-90 day payment terms — the structural cashflow problem
Bricklaying is one of the most cash-intensive subcontracting businesses in the construction sector. Materials cost is high. Labour is weekly. Projects are long. And builder payment terms of 60–90 days from end of month mean there's always a significant gap between work done and money received.
The operators who manage this successfully don't try to change the builder's payment terms — they plan around them from the beginning. Progress claims submitted on the first of every month create a predictable payment timeline. A business line of credit covers the gap. Materials accounts with suppliers are managed to align with the payment receipt dates, not with the work completion dates.
The cashflow planning habit that changes everything:
At the start of every project: map the expected payment dates. Know exactly when each progress claim goes in, when it's due for payment, and what your materials and wages commitments are in each fortnight before it arrives. Cashflow surprises in bricklaying are management failures, not bad luck.
Standing-down days — the silent cost nobody invoices for
You mobilise a three-person crew for a Thursday start. The footings aren't inspected. The reinforcement isn't in. The access point is blocked by the concreters who are running late. You can't start. Three people standing around for a day costs you $900 in wages before you've laid a single brick.
Most bricklayers absorb this cost silently. It's the cost of doing business, they say. It isn't. It's the cost of a builder not managing their program. Document it the same day — text the site supervisor, note the crew, the time of arrival, the condition found, and the variation amount. Submit it with your next progress claim. The first time you do this, there may be pushback. The second time, the builder starts communicating site readiness before you arrive.
Colour batching and the late variation claim
Brick colour consistency requires batching — getting all bricks from the same kiln batch before starting. When the builder changes their brick selection after bricklaying has started, you have colour variance, a potential rework cost, and a variation claim. The variation is legitimate. But it's far easier to collect a variation that was raised and approved the day the change was requested than one raised three months later when the project is wrapping up and everyone has moved on mentally.
Where bricklaying cashflow and margin go
| Stage | What You Need | What's Actually Happening |
|---|---|---|
| Quoting | Site conditions confirmed (footings complete, reinforcement in). Confirmed access date. Standing-down variation rate agreed. Materials batching requirements stated. Progress claim schedule agreed. | Quote accepted. Access date not confirmed. Standing-down rate not in contract. Arrive to find site not ready. No variation claimed. |
| Job Management | Daily progress records. Brick batch numbers recorded. Standing-down events documented same day with variation submitted. Change requests by builder noted and variation raised immediately. | Work progresses. No daily records. Brick batch not tracked. Builder changes spec mid-job. Variation not raised at the time. Dispute at end. |
| Invoicing | Monthly progress claims submitted on the 1st. Retention tracked from claim 1. All approved variations in each claim. Cashflow forecast updated on receipt of each payment. | Progress claims submitted irregularly. Retention not tracked. Variations omitted from claims. Cashflow surprises when a payment is late. |
| Payments | Business line of credit to bridge payment gaps. Materials account managed to payment receipt dates. Retention tracked to both release milestones. | Credit card used for materials in the gap. Interest costs absorbed silently. Retention forgotten until the project winds up years later. |
What bricklaying businesses actually need
Tradify or ServiceM8 for daily labour diaries, standing-down event documentation, and variation creation on the day of the event. Progress claim preparation from job records rather than memory.
Compare job management tools →A business line of credit sized to your average gap between work completion and claim payment is the right financial tool for a bricklaying business operating on builder payment terms. Used correctly, it eliminates cashflow stress without accumulating long-term debt.
Compare finance options →Xero handles progress billing and retention tracking cleanly. Progress claims exported from your job management tool and billed through Xero. Retention balances visible at all times. Payment receipt dates tracked against expected dates.
Compare accounting tools →Doing great bricklaying work and still getting squeezed by 90-day payment terms?
The Strategy Builder identifies whether your bricklaying business has a cashflow management, variation capture, or scheduling problem — and what to do first.
Build My Free Strategy →Frequently Asked Questions
Plan around the actual payment timeline from day one. Map expected payment dates at project start. Use a business line of credit to bridge the gap. Manage materials accounts to align with payment receipt dates. Submit progress claims on the same day every month. Cashflow surprises in bricklaying are management failures — the timeline is predictable enough to plan around if you do the planning.
Document it the same day: text or email to the site supervisor with the date, arrival time, what you found, and the crew day cost as a variation. Include it in the next progress claim. The first claim may get pushback. The pattern of documentation changes builder behaviour — they start communicating site readiness before you arrive rather than leaving you to discover the problem.
Your contract should include a confirmed access date and a standing-down variation rate for access delays. When access is delayed, issue the variation and rebook at your schedule availability — not the builder's convenience. Bricklayers who accept delays without claiming them financially are subsidising the builder's scheduling failures.