Buried in SORs and Stuck Between Two Systems That Don’t Talk? We Make It Work!

Tradies who take on work through head contractors, like Spotless on the Housing SA contract or RTC on the Housing TAS contract, often find themselves navigating two completely separate systems. There’s your system, the one your team is trained to use, and then there’s theirs. That means double-handling from the start: the job gets sent through a portal or emailed as a job sheet, and then you’re copying and pasting (or worse, manually re-entering) every detail into your own platform just so you can assign it to your team and start the actual work. Outside of that, someone still has to call the tenant and book in the job, another task on a growing to-do list that’s rarely factored into how the job is priced.

But it doesn’t end there.

Once the job’s done, you still have to upload photos, times, COCs and site notes all back into the head contractor’s system – even if you’ve already logged them in your own! That’s two sets of admin for one job, and none of that time is billable.

Then there’s the invoicing. You’ve got to raise an invoice in your own system to track your income and pay your team, but to actually get paid by the head contractor, you have to submit an invoice with every SOR claimed correctly. If those SORs don’t match the work done, or are missed altogether, there’s a strong chance you could be doing extra work without getting paid for it.

That’s where things get even messier. The SOR codes themselves are the backbone of getting paid, and there are well over 2,000 SOR codes per state, each with its own structure, pricing, and requirements. What can make this even more complex is if you are a multi-trade contractor juggling dozens of possible variations across carpentry, plumbing, electrical, roofing, and more.

You’re expected to know them all and apply them correctly on every single job.

For example: in South Australia, CY167 refers to a 2040 x 820 solid core door, 35mm thick, and it includes the hinges and screws, but not the door handle. If your carpenter replaces the handle and doesn’t claim the additional code, that cost, the handle, the time spent fitting it, is money out of your pocket. That’s where mistakes happen: small details missed because you’re rushing, tired, or just don’t know there’s a separate code for it.

One of our clients, a multi-trade company had over 1,300 overdue work orders sitting in their system when they first came to us. Over the course of three months, we brought that number down to just over 800 overdue work orders by taking over their scheduling and admin workflows. That meant pulling job data from the portal, creating jobs in their internal system, assigning it to their techs, and streamlining job close-outs. The effective scheduling of their trades meant we could reduce unnecessary travel between jobs, improving how their overheads were used. In simple terms; fewer hours wasted driving meant more hours on the tools, and more profit per day.

In another case, we managed the opposite side of the process; taking incoming orders, setting them up correctly in the client’s system, and then managing the closing process at the other end. That included making sure the right SOR codes were claimed, confirming documentation was complete, and breaking down large RCTIs to match each payment with the correct job.

We’ve seen first-hand how working on Government contracts creates overwhelm, mental fatigue, cash flow gaps, and lost weekends spent trying to schedule and match payments to work orders, instead of spending time with family.

At Virtual Trade Management, we step in to carry the weight that’s been unfairly placed on you. When the head contractor won’t help, and the systems don’t align, you’re the one left bridging the gap. You’re the one stuck chasing paperwork, reconciling lump sum payments, or trying to explain why something didn’t get claimed, all on top of running a team and delivering the actual work.

We get it. And more importantly, we can help.

We’re the partner who shows up when no one else does, handling the parts no one wants to deal with, and doing it properly. While you’re managing teams, juggling jobs, and trying to stay on top of two systems that don’t talk, we’re in the background fixing the admin chaos that’s quietly draining your time, energy, and profit. When VTM steps in, you get more than admin support, you get your time back, control over your workflow, clarity around your cash flow, and confidence that nothing is slipping through the cracks.

VTM is already working alongside tradies across Australia to clean up the chaos, take the admin burden off their shoulders, and make sure they get paid properly for every job, and we would love to help you.