The Procurement-Ready Starter Kit
The four pillars, the 12-point self-check and the entity-map exercise — everything you need to find your gaps before a buyer does. For Australian trade & construction businesses chasing the $116 billion boom.
Before you start: the four pillars
Every prequalification form you will ever fill in is the same four questions in different words. The gate is administrative, not technical — it rewards the provable, not the most talented. Here are the four pillars a buyer checks.
Quality
Can you prove you control your own work? Documented checks, version control on drawings, and defects caught and fixed — with a record to show for it, not just a promise.
Safety & environment
Can you produce the evidence on demand? Task-specific method statements, a live risk register, incidents recorded and closed out, and waste, dust and spills managed.
Financial capacity
Do the numbers say you can carry the work? Working capital, liquidity and net assets read against a buyer's formula — not a gut feel about whether you seem solid.
Insurance & licensing
Right cover, right limit, right entity? Current public liability at the level the work demands, the licences your trade needs, and every policy in the exact entity that signs the contract.
The 12-point self-check
Tick one box per line. Score 2 for "in place", 1 for "partly", 0 for "not yet", then add them up. Prefer to do it on screen? Take the interactive version for an instant score.
The entity-map exercise
The most expensive mistake in prequalification isn't missing cover — it's the right cover in the wrong name. List every entity in your group and what it holds, then confirm your licence and insurances sit in the entity that actually signs contracts.
| Entity (name & ABN) | What it holds (licence, PL / PI, workers comp, bank, assets) | Signs work? |
|---|---|---|
General guidance, not procurement or financial advice.