The work is done. The money is 45 days away.
Construction finance is its own trade. Progress claims, retentions, variations, pre-sales, defects liability — none of it behaves like ordinary business lending, and a broker who does not live in it will price your file like a shop.
Free. You are never invoiced. Specialist. This lane only goes to brokers who write it weekly.
If any of this is your week
You are not short of work. You are short of the money the work already earned.
“The claim went in three weeks ago and it is still ‘with the QS’.”Certified, disputed, or simply sitting. Meanwhile the next progress payment to your subbies is due Friday.
“There is $90,000 in retention I will not see for another year.”Held through practical completion and the defects liability period — your money, on their balance sheet.
“We won the next job but cannot fund the start.”Deposit on materials, plant hire, first month of labour — all before a single claim can be raised.
The deciding factor in this lane
One thing usually flips a construction file from no to yes — and it is not your turnover.
It is who owes you the money and how firmly they owe it. A certified claim against a tier-one head contractor and an uncertified variation against a private developer are not the same asset, even for the same dollars.
Tool 01 in the Smart System asks these directly, so the answers are already in your brief before a broker rings. That is most of the difference between a first call that goes somewhere and one that starts from scratch.
Before you finance an unpaid claim, check this — it is free
Every state and territory has a Security of Payment Act with a fast adjudication process built specifically for unpaid progress claims and retention. It is designed for exactly this situation, it is far cheaper than financing the gap, and it does not require a lawyer to start.
The timeframes are short and strictly enforced — miss a deadline and you generally lose the right for that claim. So check your state’s process before you price a facility against the money.
Why we lead with this: if adjudication gets you paid, you do not need us, and we would rather tell you that now than take a brief we should not have taken.
Get these together first
What a lender in this lane will ask for
Having these ready is worth more than a better pitch. It is also the difference between an answer this week and an answer next month.
Who this lane goes to
Usually a Sector Specialist.
Matched from the Advance Network when your brief is a construction file. See what the five kinds of broker actually do →
What we hold them to: they write files like yours every week, not occasionally. They read your brief before the first call. They will tell you “not yet” and say what would change it. And no lender has paid to be on their panel or in our Network — there is nothing to buy.
Send a construction & trades brief
Tell us the situation in your own words.
A few lines is enough to start. Nothing goes to a lender and no credit check is run from this form — sending it starts a conversation, not an application.
Keep learning
Finance Field Guide
See how this product sits on the lending ladder, what a credit assessor is actually testing, and how the answer changes by business type. Open the field guide →