Guide · 367 answers

How YourCA works, step by step.

Where can I see what my dates rest on?

  1. Where you have not said otherwise, YourCA treats you as the subcontractor. If you are the head contractor claiming from the principal, the Act gives you payment in 15 business days rather than 20, and the payment due date moves.
  2. The date the contract was entered into decides which rules apply. New South Wales changed them in 2014 and again in 2019. Until you give the date, the Contract card on the Dash asks for it in a row.
  3. Retention withheld from each claim, the most that can be held and the defects liability period can be figures you recorded yourself rather than read off a clause. A date worked out from one of them is only as right as the figure, and no clause is cited for it.
  4. Business days leave out weekends, the December and January shutdown the Act sets, and the national public holidays: New Year's Day, Australia Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. When New Year's Day, Australia Day, Christmas Day or Boxing Day falls on a weekend, the weekday in its place is left out too. Anzac Day moves to the Monday in Queensland when it falls on a Sunday, and in Western Australia when it falls on a Saturday or a Sunday.
  5. A payment period your contract sets in business days is counted on weekdays less public holidays, without the Christmas shutdown, so the earlier date shows. If your contract takes the Christmas period out of its business days too, your date is later than the one shown.
  6. State public holidays are counted for every state and territory. In Tasmania, the regional holidays count for a date under the Act, not for a notice under your contract.
  7. One part of the Queensland reading came from a secondary source, because YourCA could not open the text of s 67 of the Act. A Queensland date that rests on it says so. Check it against s 67 before you serve.
  8. Some questions of law behind these dates are still open. YourCA fixes a payment due date at the moment you serve, so an answer that comes later does not move a claim you already served.
Worth knowing

These are statutory defaults, not legal advice. Check every date against your contract and the Act before you serve. If your contract sets an earlier date than the Act, the contract date is the one to meet.