As Australia's construction industry looks for ways to lift productivity, attention is turning to an often-overlooked cost: the time and resources spent recording, reconciling and paying for work already completed.
The crew has finished the job. The plant has left site. The materials have been delivered. But back in the office, someone is still chasing dockets, checking quantities and trying to reconcile what needs to be paid.
It's a familiar situation across civil construction, and one that comes at a cost.
While contractors continue to invest in equipment, technology and more efficient ways to deliver work on site, the commercial processes behind that work haven't always kept pace.
Every missing docket, disputed quantity or delayed approval consumes resources. It can also leave commercial teams without an accurate picture of project costs until well after the work has been completed.
Docketbook’s Chief Revenue Officer Dan Wilson sees an opportunity to improve productivity by tackling these everyday inefficiencies.
"There's still a lot of paper-based manual processes that can create risk and create cost overrun," Wilson says.
For contractors working on tight margins, improving the efficiency of recording, verifying and paying for work can have a direct impact on profitability.
Queensland's preparations for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games present a generational opportunity for the construction industry. With major infrastructure projects moving into delivery, the pressure is on to make every hour, load and dollar count.
National civil contractor BMD Group has been using Docketbook across major projects for several years, including the Deception Bay Interchange Upgrade and Rockhampton Ring Road.
Now, on the Brisbane Stadium early works, Docketbook is being used alongside Aptella to track loads, hours and costs, supporting real-time productivity reporting.
For project teams, having that information available as work progresses means greater visibility of daily expenditure, earlier identification of discrepancies and more opportunity to manage costs before they escalate.
The benefits extend through the supply chain. North Queensland haulage business Dennis Enterprises, which adopted Docketbook through its work with BMD, reduced its month-end invoicing time from up to three hours to under 30 minutes.
As Australia's infrastructure pipeline grows, the opportunity is to apply these same commercial efficiencies across projects of every scale, improving how work is tracked, reconciled and ultimately paid for.
The commercial implications extend beyond day-to-day cost control.
Across Australia, Security of Payment legislation provides important protections for construction businesses, with specific requirements varying between states and territories.
Yet the legislation doesn't remove the practical work involved in establishing what's been delivered, what was agreed and what should be paid.
If those details are unclear, contractors and suppliers can spend valuable time investigating discrepancies, challenging invoices and retrieving supporting records.
Wilson sees the opportunity in connecting the entire transaction, from the initial order through to the final invoice.
"The entire thing is the record that everybody agrees on," he says.
Docketbook connects orders, digital dockets and invoices through a shared workflow, enabling three-way matching and reducing manual reconciliation.
For contractors, that means clearer oversight of expenditure and fewer transactions requiring investigation. For suppliers, accurate records of completed work can simplify invoicing and support payment claims.
Wilson believes better payment processes can also strengthen relationships across the supply chain.
"Contractors often talk about their supplier relationships as a competitive advantage. But those relationships are really put to the test when it comes time to pay," he says.
When work has been completed, verified and agreed, suppliers should have confidence that the commercial records support what they're claiming. For contractors, that means fewer disputes to resolve and a more efficient path to payment.
It's a practical way to strengthen supply chain relationships while reducing the administrative burden on both sides.
For Wilson, the business case for investing in better processes comes back to a simple principle.
"Organisations only buy software for two reasons. It's to help them make money, or to help them save money."
For contractors, the opportunity is to take a closer look at the time and resources spent managing the commercial side of project delivery.
Better visibility of costs, fewer disputed transactions and more efficient reconciliation can all contribute to stronger project margins and a more productive supply chain.
Because every hour spent reconciling work that's already been completed is another cost to the business.