You already know something is wrong. Most Construction Business Owners we audit have known for a long time, without being able to put their finger on what or why. Our Construction Business Improvement Audit will work your business across the 13 categories of our Construction Business Improvement System, find every issue worth fixing, and rank them in priority order. Rachelle Hare and Shannon Drew will run your Audit together over four weeks.
You will receive our written Audit Report at the end of Week 4. The Report will contain three things: our Audit Insights (the substantive findings across each category of our System), our Audit Scorecard (the ranking system we use to prioritise findings), and our Recommendations to Fix, Strengthen and Grow your Construction Business (the Executive Summary, ordered by priority).
Our Audit will stand alone. You can keep your Audit Report and act on the Recommendations in your own time, or continue with us into Step 2 of our Construction Business Improvement System. Your Audit Report will be yours either way.
We do not poke around your business looking for things to write up. We know what we are usually going to find inside a Construction Business turning over $5M to $200M, because we have been inside Construction Businesses at every revenue band across our careers. Shannon and I head straight to those issues, work them properly, and rank what we find.
Rachelle HareOur Audit will work through the same 13 categories as the rest of our Construction Business Improvement System, in the same order. Below is the short version of each category. For the full version of each step, see our 13-Step Construction Business Improvement System page.
- The Audit itself, run by Rachelle and Shannon together
- Audit Insights, Audit Scorecard and Recommendations to Fix, Strengthen and Grow your Construction Business
- Board meeting after Audit Report delivery (often into Month 2, included in Step 1)
- Written 12-month Implementation Plan that sequences every Recommendation from your Audit Report
- Meetings with the heads of each Division and work area inside your business
- Scope, resourcing and pricing for the remaining 11 steps of our System
- Your rolling 13-week cash flow forecast (often missing or out of date)
- Reliability of the numbers driving your decisions
- Where your asset value compares to your operating risk
- Whether your building licence is held in the right entity
- Your total personal guarantee exposure (often unknown)
- Director duty exposure under the Corporations Act and WHS Act
- Time bars and notice obligations being missed on your Projects
- Proposals being submitted without departures or assumptions
- Whether your Executive Team holds the delegations to act on your strategy
- Where decisions are being made without being recorded
- Your pricing strategy and how risk is priced into your tenders
- Your security of payment position (often underused)
- Information that has not been passed up to you
- Overhead recovery against your actual volume of work
- Key person risk and what happens if you take a week off
- Whether your divisions work cohesively
- QBCC obligations and your Project Trust Account compliance
- Gap between WHS practice on site and your policies on paper
- Your win rate and your loss patterns across the last 12 months
- Whether the work you are bidding for matches your revenue band
- A plan for your eventual exit (so the business is ready, even if you have no immediate intention to step away)
- Conversion to our Ongoing Improvement Retainer for clients who want us in place beyond the System
Four weeks. Fixed price quoted in writing before any work begins. Rachelle and Shannon on every Audit together.
Construction Businesses turning over $5M to $30M usually run on the Owner. Construction Businesses turning over $30M to $200M usually run on a Managing Director, a Chief Executive Officer or a Board. The structure of our Audit will stay the same. The Recommendations at the top of your Executive Summary will look different depending on where your business runs from.
You make every decision of consequence. Your business cannot run for a week without you in it. Your Executive Team often holds title but lacks the delegations and authorisations to act independently on your strategy.
A Managing Director or Chief Executive Officer and a Board make the decisions. The day-to-day reliance on you personally is no longer there, although the governance and policies the business now needs often have not caught up.
Most Owners we audit in this range cannot draw or describe the structure of their business in a single page. We work through that with you in the first two weeks of our Audit, and it usually opens your Recommendations.
Divisions exist but do not always work cohesively together. The policies and procedures the business needs at this size often have not been put in place. Your business still feels family-run while competing against Tier 2 and high Tier 3 corporate Construction Businesses.
You sign contracts on the counterparty’s template and on commercial positions that have not been tested against the market. Time bars and notice obligations are missed on Projects already underway. Proposals go out without departures or assumptions.
Projects are higher-stakes, but the business often runs on cheap templates put together years ago. You do not carry a single standing commercial position into every Project, so each Project gets negotiated from scratch.
Personal guarantees have stacked up and you no longer hold a current total of your exposure. Your director duty exposure under the Corporations Act and WHS Act often does not match the size your business has grown to.
Director protection often falls behind in the move from Owner-led to Board-led. Personal liability for the Directors of the business rarely matches the scale of the work the business now wins.
Every finding from our Audit will be ranked on our Audit Scorecard. The Scorecard runs across the three phases of our Construction Business Improvement System: Fix, Strengthen and Grow. We use the Scorecard to build your Recommendations, which form the Executive Summary at the front of your Audit Report. Fix Recommendations come first. Strengthen Recommendations come second. Grow Recommendations come last.
Issues Your Business Cannot Move on Safely Without Addressing
Findings we work first. The business is exposed in a way that is costing money, building personal liability, or holding the next move back. These Recommendations open your Executive Summary.
Issues That Will Hold the Business Back Without Action
Not on fire today, but the Construction Business is not set up the way it needs to be at your revenue band. These Recommendations follow the Fix items in your Executive Summary.
Moves That Let You Step Up Safely
Improvements that let you take on bigger work, bid for Brisbane 2032, step from Tier 3 to Tier 2, or get the business ready for sale or succession. These Recommendations close your Executive Summary.
Week 1: Scope, Documents and Information
We will sign engagement paperwork, confirm your fixed price in writing, and open the secure data room. Your document and information request will arrive in chunks for smaller Construction Businesses, or as a combined list for larger ones, prioritised in the order of our System.
Week 2: Working Sessions With You and Your Key People
We will run three or four working sessions with you and the people inside your business who know what is going on. Energy-led, not script-led. We run as many sessions as the substance needs, no more.
Week 3: Priority Meeting and Substantive Analysis
Week 3 will open with a two-hour Priority Meeting where Rachelle and Shannon walk you through our findings to date, sense-check our read of the business with you, and agree the priorities for your Recommendations.
Week 4: Draft Review, Final Report and Board Meeting
You (or the person who instructed us) will review your Audit Report in draft, with a two business day turnaround on comments. We will deliver the final Report. The Board meeting that walks the Directors through your Report is part of Step 1 and runs after delivery, often into Month 2.
Your Audit Report will open with our Recommendations to Fix, Strengthen and Grow your Construction Business: the Executive Summary that tells you what to do first, second and third. Most Owners we audit read the Executive Summary first, look at the categories where they already had concerns, and only then meet with us to talk about what comes next.
The rest of your Audit Report will be organised under the 13 categories of our Construction Business Improvement System. Your Audit Insights will appear under the category they belong to. Each Recommendation will name the issue, name the next step, and indicate where the work belongs.
We recently worked with a $40M civil contractor whose Owner had been carrying tight cash flow for almost two years with no clear read on the cause. Our Audit found three issues stacked on top of each other. His management reporting was six weeks behind, so every decision he was making relied on stale numbers. Two of his five biggest head contracts had time bars his project managers were missing on roughly half of variation claims. And his overhead was set up for a $55M business, not a $40M business. The Executive Summary opened with those three items, and by the Board meeting we had agreement on the order to fix them in.
Shannon DrewWe tier our Audit price by the complexity of your Construction Business. Larger Construction Businesses come with more contracts, more staff, more entities, and need deeper analysis through Week 3. We will confirm your fixed price in writing after a short scoping conversation, before any work begins.
$5M to $30M Construction Business
From
$11,500 + GST
Rachelle and Shannon together for four weeks. Full Audit Report. Most engagements in this band land at the lower end of the tier.
$30M to $75M Construction Business
From
$19,500 + GST
More Projects, more contracts, and a deeper financial analysis through Week 3.
$75M to $100M Construction Business
From
$32,500 + GST
Heavier governance, intercompany and group-level financial work, with director protection in focus.
Construction Businesses above $100M in revenue will be quoted on application.
Only have one issue? Want to start with something smaller? Our Construction Business Issue Review at $1,997 + GST gives you a board-presentable written deliverable on one issue within the business. Same Rachelle and Shannon, smaller scope of work. See our Construction Business Issue Review.
To address just one piece of work in three of the 13 categories of our System through separately engaged advisers, the typical Brisbane fees you would pay are below. Compare those to our Audit, which works across all 13 categories together.
Hiring Separately
Our Construction Business Improvement Audit
No other firm in Australia delivers this work across all 13 categories together. Your Audit Report will rank every finding from every category in one Executive Summary, so you will know what to fix first across the whole business.
Keep Your Audit Report
Your Audit Report will be yours. Many Owners take a few weeks to digest what we found before deciding their next move. The Audit will end cleanly at the Board meeting, and you will have a clear picture of what to fix and in what order.
Continue Into Step 2 of Our System
Step 2 is your written 12-month Implementation Plan, paired with meetings with the heads of each Division and work area inside your business. The Plan will sequence every Recommendation from your Audit Report across the remaining months of our System.
Step 2 will stand alone. You can buy the Implementation Plan and run the work yourself, or carry on with us through Steps 3 to 13 in Done With You or Done For You delivery.
You will not find this combination of skills anywhere else in Australia. Rachelle and Shannon will both be on your Audit, working as one integrated team across the four weeks. We speak every day, and we are both across every issue and concern the other has surfaced. That integrated working will give your Audit Report the depth it costs.
Rachelle Hare
Construction Lawyer, Commercial Manager and Business Adviser
Acting General Counsel at Thiess, Senior Legal Counsel at Laing O’Rourke and Acciona, plus work with Defence Housing Australia, UGL and Golding. Top-tier private practice at Corrs Chambers Westgarth and McCullough Robertson. Six years as a Commercial Manager working with Defence (alongside the Australian Government Solicitor, Defence Housing Australia and the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group) and a Tier 2 Construction and Technology provider.
Rachelle leads the legal, contracting, commercial, governance and compliance work of every Audit.
Shannon Drew
Management Accountant, Costs Accountant, Fractional CFO, Commercial Adviser and Business Adviser
25+ years of construction industry experience inside and alongside Construction Businesses at every scale, from small trade contractors to large head contractors. Project profitability and cost analysis, overhead recovery, pricing strategy, cash flow modelling and forecasting, WIP reporting, budget versus actual analysis, and financial modelling.
Shannon leads the cash flow, financial function, pricing, commercial position and management reporting work of every Audit.
The overall feeling at the end of an Audit is relief. Most Owners come into Week 1 carrying years of low-grade stress about things they have known were not running smoothly, and could not put their finger on. Over the four weeks they realise three things. Shannon and I have worked with Construction Businesses like theirs before, we know what we are talking about, and we have their back.
By the time we walk the Directors through the Audit Report at the Board meeting, most Owners do not really care about the rest of the Report. They want to read the Executive Summary, agree the priorities, and get cracking on the fix. The load comes off in that room. A few Owners have had a tear in their eye. I have been hugged at the end of more than one.
The next thing those Owners usually do is call a mate who is struggling in his own Construction Business and tell him to call us. That is where most of our Audit referrals come from. There are months when we have to close the books for new Audits so we can finish the engagements already in front of us.
Rachelle HareFour weeks from set-up to delivery of your Audit Report, plus the Board meeting that follows (often into Month 2, included in Step 1). Our Audit is fixed price, confirmed in writing before any work begins. The tier is driven by the complexity of your business: from $11,500 + GST for $5M to $30M, from $19,500 + GST for $30M to $75M, and from $32,500 + GST for $75M to $100M. Construction Businesses above $100M will be quoted on application.
Rachelle Hare (Construction Lawyer, Commercial Manager and Business Adviser) and Shannon Drew (Management Accountant, Costs Accountant, Fractional CFO, Commercial Adviser and Business Adviser) run every Audit together. No junior carries substantive work. Both have 25+ years inside the construction industry, and have worked with more than 2,000 Construction Businesses across their careers.
Every Audit finding is scored on our Audit Scorecard, which runs across the three phases of our Construction Business Improvement System: Fix, Strengthen and Grow. We use the Scorecard to build your Recommendations, which open your Audit Report as the Executive Summary. Fix Recommendations come first, Strengthen Recommendations second, Grow Recommendations last.
Our Construction Business Assessment is a free online scorecard that gives you a high-level picture of where your business stands across the 13 categories of our System. Our Construction Business Issue Review at $1,997 + GST gives you a board-presentable written deliverable on one part of the business. Our Construction Business Improvement Audit at $11,500 + GST and above is the full four-week diagnostic across all 13 categories, with the Audit Report, the Audit Scorecard, and your Recommendations to Fix, Strengthen and Grow your business.
You can stop after the Audit. Your Audit Report will be yours either way. Many Owners take a few weeks to digest the Report before deciding their next move. If you want to continue with us, Step 2 is our written 12-month Implementation Plan, paired with meetings with the heads of each Division and work area in your business.
Yes. The Construction Businesses we most prefer to audit are the ones performing well. Our Audit catches the issues that quietly compress margin, build personal liability and limit growth before they show up in the cash flow. Owners who wait until the business is in trouble have fewer options and less time to address the issues we surface. Our Audit is built for Owners who want to keep what they have built and grow it from a known position.
Document gathering in Week 1 will take a few hours across the week from your team. Your working sessions in Week 2 will usually be three or four sessions of 90 minutes to two hours each, run with you and your key people. Week 3 will open with our two-hour Priority Meeting. Week 4 has the draft review window and the delivery. The Board meeting follows. We work around your Project commitments and we run sessions remotely where useful.
Blaze Business & Legal is based at Suite 8, Level 7, 154 Melbourne Street, South Brisbane QLD 4101. We audit Construction Businesses across Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT and other jurisdictions. Most of our Audit runs remotely through secure data rooms and video sessions, with onsite work where the engagement warrants it.
Four weeks. Fixed price quoted in writing. Rachelle and Shannon on every Audit together. Your Audit Insights, your Audit Scorecard, and your Recommendations to Fix, Strengthen and Grow your Construction Business, delivered in your Audit Report.
