INSIGHT · CONTRACTS & PAYMENTS
A programme is an internal document
until a reference date
makes it one that pays.
A construction programme starts life as a planning tool. Nobody signs it and no Act names it. Then a payment claim is served, and the question of whether it could be served at all turns on a reference date, which the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld) takes from the contract before it supplies one of its own. If the contract works its claim dates off the programme, the programme has stopped being an internal document and started deciding when money can be asked for.
Analysed 4 November 2026 · Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld), in force version, chapter 3, read through the Queensland legislation register · read 4 November 2026.
Key takeaways
- The entitlement runs from a reference date, not from doing the work: Section 70: "From each reference date under a construction contract, a person is entitled to a progress payment if the person has carried out construction work, or supplied related goods and services, under the contract." Work done without a reference date having arrived is work done, not an entitlement to claim.
- The contract defines that date first; the Act only fills a gap: The reference date is "a date stated in, or worked out under, the contract as the date on which a claim for a progress payment may be made". Only "if the contract does not provide for the matter" does the Act supply the last day of the month work was first carried out, and the last day of each later month.
- "Worked out under the contract" is where a programme can enter: A date stated in the contract is fixed. A date worked out under it may depend on something the contract points at, and on many jobs what it points at is the programme. That is the mechanism by which a planning document acquires legal effect without ever being named in the Act.
- The claim has to identify work, which is a programme question: Section 68: a payment claim "identifies the construction work or related goods and services to which the progress payment relates". Identifying it after the fact, from memory, is a different exercise from recording it as the stage closed.
- Valuation follows the contract too: Section 72: construction work is valued "in accordance with the contract" if the contract provides for it, and only otherwise by reference to the contract price, other rates, agreed variations and, where work is defective, "the estimated cost of rectifying the defect".
- We would version the programme the way a contract document is versioned: Our system-design recommendation: each programme revision recorded with its date, which claim-bearing dates it moved, and what work it showed as complete at each, so a claim served months earlier can be reconstructed.
01
The chain from a date
to a payable amount.
Chapter 3 of the BIF Act builds the entitlement in steps. Each step is a separate section, and each hands off to the contract where the contract has spoken. Quoted as read on 4 November 2026.
Read the column of conditionals. Four of the six steps begin by deferring to the contract. The Act is the floor, not the rulebook: it decides what happens where the contract is silent, and the contract decides the rest. A programme matters here only to the extent the contract lets it.
| Step | Section | What the Act says |
|---|---|---|
| A reference date arrives | sch 1 definition | "a date stated in, or worked out under, the contract as the date on which a claim for a progress payment may be made" |
| Entitlement attaches | s 70 | "From each reference date under a construction contract, a person is entitled to a progress payment if the person has carried out construction work" |
| The amount is set | s 71 | "if the contract provides for the matter-the amount calculated in accordance with the contract" |
| The work is valued | s 72(1) | "if the contract provides for the matter-in accordance with the contract", otherwise by contract price, other rates, agreed variations and rectification cost for defective work |
| A claim is made | s 68(1) | a written document that identifies the work, states the claimed amount, requests payment, and includes "the other information prescribed by regulation" |
| A schedule responds | s 69 | identifies the claim, states what will be paid and, if less, "states why the amount proposed to be paid is less, including the respondent's reasons for withholding any payment" |
02
What happens when
the contract says nothing.
The Act's fallback is deliberately mechanical, and the contrast with a programme-driven arrangement is the point.
- The default is calendar, not progress: Where the contract does not provide for the matter, the reference date is "the last day of the month in which the construction work was first carried out" and "the last day of each later month". Nothing about stages, milestones or completion.
- So under the default, a programme has no payment effect at all: The month ends whether the work went well or badly. A contractor on the statutory fallback claims monthly for what was done; the programme informs what to claim, not whether a claim may be made.
- Under a contract that names stages, the programme can decide both: If the claim date is worked out by reference to a stage, then whether the stage has been reached is a question of fact that the programme and the site records answer together. The same revision that moves a stage moves the date a claim may be served.
- Termination is dealt with separately: The definition continues into what happens where a contract is terminated and "does not provide for, or purports to pr[ovide]" for the matter. That limb is outside this reading and is noted so no one takes the two-limb summary above as complete.
03
Three records that have to
agree with each other.
The practical difficulty is not knowing the law. It is that the three documents which together decide a claim are usually maintained by three different people on three different systems.
A claim served in March and disputed in August is reconstructed from all three as they stood in March. If the programme exists only as a current file that has been overwritten eleven times since, the March version is gone and the reconstruction rests on recollection. The site's reading of the daily record covers the third row; this one is about the second.
| Document | Who keeps it | What it settles |
|---|---|---|
| The contract | Commercial or legal | Whether reference dates are stated, worked out, or absent. Everything else follows from this and it is read least often. |
| The programme | Planning or site | Where a stage sits. Revised often, versioned rarely, and almost never kept in a way that shows what it said on a past date. |
| The site record | Site | What was actually carried out, which s 68 requires a claim to identify. |
04
What a payment schedule
asks the other side to do.
Section 69 is short and it is the clearest statement in the chapter of why records on both sides have to be contemporaneous. A payment schedule is a written document that identifies the claim it responds to, states the amount proposed to be paid, and where that is less than claimed, "states why the amount proposed to be paid is less, including the respondent's reasons for withholding any payment".
- Reasons are required at the time, not later: The obligation is to state them in the schedule. A respondent assembling reasons after a dispute has started is assembling them from the same overwritten records as the claimant.
- Which makes the respondent's programme a record too: If the reason for withholding is that a stage was not reached, the evidence for that is the programme and the site record on the day, held by the party withholding.
- And makes defect valuation a dated question: Section 72 brings "the estimated cost of rectifying the defect" into valuation where work is defective. An estimate has a date and an author, and both belong in the record with it.
What we would put in a system
The point of contact is every programme revision, and every claim served.
Where agents help is narrow. A document intelligence agent can compare a new programme revision against the previous one and draft which dates moved, flagging any that the contract treats as claim-bearing. A reporting agent can draft, for a served claim, the programme version and site records as they stood on the service date. A person decides whether a reference date has arrived, what a claim covers, and whether to serve it. No agent decides whether an amount is payable, whether a stage was reached, or what a contract means. Those are matters for the parties and their advisers.
| Field | Why it is load-bearing |
|---|---|
| Whether the contract states reference dates, works them out, or is silent | This decides whether the programme has payment effect at all. One reading, recorded once, that everything else depends on. |
| Programme version, with its issue date | A claim is reconstructed from what the programme said then, not now. Without versions the earlier state does not exist. |
| Which claim-bearing dates each revision moved | A resequencing that moves a stage may move when a claim may be served. That consequence is invisible in a scheduling tool. |
| The work identified in each claim, as served | Section 68(1)(a) requires the claim to identify it. Keeping the served version is what makes the identification checkable. |
| For a schedule: the reasons stated, as stated | Section 69(c) requires reasons in the document. Paraphrasing them into a system loses the thing that was required. |
| Any defect estimate relied on, with its date and author | Section 72(1)(b)(iv) brings rectification cost into valuation. An undated estimate cannot be tested. |
Questions worth asking
of your own records
For a builder or head contractor: does your contract state reference dates, work them out from something else, or say nothing?
The three answers put the programme in three different positions. Under the Act's fallback the programme has no effect on when a claim may be served; under a contract that works the date out from a stage, it may decide it.
For a project manager: can you produce the programme as it stood on the day a claim was served six months ago?
If the programme is a file that has been overwritten since, no. That is the version a dispute would be reconstructed from.
For a contract administrator: when you issue a payment schedule for less than the claim, are the reasons in the schedule or in an email?
Section 69(c) requires the schedule to state why the amount is less, including the reasons for withholding. Where those reasons live decides whether the requirement was met by the document.
For a subcontractor: does your claim identify the work the way the Act asks, or the way your invoice template does?
Section 68(1)(a) requires the claim to identify the construction work or related goods and services to which the payment relates. An invoice line that says "progress claim 7" has not done that by itself.
For a commercial manager: when a resequencing is approved, does anyone check whether it moved a claim date?
In a scheduling tool a stage move is a planning change. Under a contract that works reference dates out from stages it may also be a payment change, and the two systems rarely talk.
Questions people ask
about programmes and payment claims
Is a construction programme a contract document?
Not by force of the BIF Act, which never mentions a programme. It can become one through the contract: the reference date is "a date stated in, or worked out under, the contract", and a contract may work that date out by reference to stages a programme records. Whether any particular contract does is a question about that contract.
When can a progress payment be claimed in Queensland?
Section 70: from each reference date under the contract, where the person has carried out construction work or supplied related goods and services. The reference date comes from the contract where the contract provides for it, and otherwise from the Act's monthly fallback.
What is a reference date?
Under the Act's definition, "a date stated in, or worked out under, the contract as the date on which a claim for a progress payment may be made for construction work carried out, or related goods and services supplied, under the contract". Where the contract does not provide for it, the Act supplies the last day of the month work was first carried out and the last day of each later month.
What has to be in a payment claim?
Section 68(1): a written document that identifies the work or related goods and services, states the claimed amount, requests payment, and includes the other information prescribed by regulation. We did not read the regulation and do not state what it prescribes.
Does a programme change affect what I can claim?
It can, where the contract works reference dates out from something the programme records. It cannot where reference dates are stated as fixed dates, or where the Act's monthly fallback applies. The contract decides which of those you are in.
What this analysis
does and does not show.
As read on 4 November 2026
- Entitlement
- s 70: from each reference date, where construction work has been carried out or related goods and services supplied
- Reference date
- A date stated in, or worked out under, the contract; the Act's fallback is monthly
- Amount
- s 71: in accordance with the contract where it provides for the matter
- Valuation
- s 72(1): in accordance with the contract, otherwise contract price, other rates, agreed variations, and rectification cost for defective work
- Payment claim
- s 68(1): identifies the work, states the claimed amount, requests payment, includes information prescribed by regulation
- Payment schedule
- s 69: identifies the claim, states the proposed amount and, if less, the reasons for withholding
- The Act and programmes
- The Act does not mention a programme or a construction schedule
- Queensland only, and within Queensland only chapter 3 of the BIF Act as read on 4 November 2026. Other states and territories have their own security of payment Acts with their own definitions, covered separately on this site.
- We did not read the regulation that s 68(1)(d) and s 69(d) refer to, and state nothing about what it prescribes.
- The termination limb of the reference date definition is noted but not read out in full, and nothing here rests on it.
- We read no construction contract. Whether any contract states reference dates, works them out from a programme, or is silent is a question about that contract, and the answer changes what this reading means for a business.
- Nothing here is legal or contractual advice. It does not determine whether any claim may be served, whether any amount is payable, whether any stage was reached, or what any contract means. Those are matters for the parties and their advisers.
- No standard form contract is quoted or reproduced.
What to watch next
Two things a reader can settle for themselves rather than take from us.
- Which of the three positions your contracts are in: Stated dates, dates worked out from something else, or silence. It is one reading per contract template and it decides whether a programme revision is a planning event or a payment event.
- The regulation behind sections 68 and 69: Both sections end by requiring "the other information prescribed by regulation". That content sits outside the Act and outside this reading, and a claim or schedule that is complete under the Act may still be short of it.
Bring us one payment claim
and the programme behind it.
Send us a claim you served and the programme it rested on. We will show you which dates in it were claim-bearing under the contract, what a versioned record would have held, and what could be reconstructed today.
This article is general information about published Queensland legislation and about how programme and claim records are structured. It is not legal or contractual advice. It does not interpret any contract, determine whether any claim may be served or any amount is payable, and reproduces no standard form contract. It covers Queensland only. All pages are as read on 4 November 2026 and can change.
Sources
Suggested citation: Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld) chapter 3, as read 4 November 2026. No figure in this reading is derived by us.
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