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Australian Real Estate
What should Australian developers expect from a real estate ERP consultant?
Australian developers should expect help connecting off-the-plan contracts, deposits held in trust or secured by bonds, presales for development finance, settlement and GST into one design. I map each lot or apartment from release to settlement, decide which system owns stock and contract status, test the platforms on your own scenarios and oversee the rollout online, with sessions timed to your state's business hours.
Last reviewed by Vikas Saroj
Australian apartment, townhouse and land subdivision developers usually sell off the plan to secure finance. Deposits are taken on exchange and generally held in a trust account or replaced by a deposit bond, lenders count qualifying presales before funding construction, and settlement can only happen once the plan is registered. Each state adds its own rules around disclosure, sunset dates and deposits.
I help Australian developers design systems that track that cycle without a tangle of agent spreadsheets and finance reconciliations. The starting point is the lot or apartment: release, pricing, contract, deposit, variations, settlement adjustments and handover, mapped alongside the development budget and the entity that owns the project.
Delivery is remote, with live sessions in the hours that suit your state and asynchronous review in between.
What I Do
I concentrate on the contract and finance controls that matter between first release and the final settlement of a project.
A data model for stages, buildings, lots and apartments with price lists, holds, agent allocations and status from available to settled, so no lot is promised to two buyers.
Requirements for recording each contract's exchange date, deposit amount and form, trust account or bond details, special conditions and key dates, with reminders before any critical date approaches.
Defining the presale schedules, cost reports and cost-to-complete figures your financier and quantity surveyor expect, generated from contract and budget records rather than compiled by hand.
Mapping how plan registration, settlement notices, adjustments and proceeds flow through to revenue, loan repayment and deposit release entries, including the data your conveyancers and lawyers provide.
Separating what the CRM or sales platform handles, including inquiries, agents and holds, from what the ERP owns, and setting commission triggers such as exchange or settlement in writing.
Vendor demos built on one of your projects: a release, an exchange with a deposit bond, a variation, a presale report and a settlement, scored identically across every option.
What to Measure
An ERP for real estate should make these numbers available without a spreadsheet. I design the data model and reports around them from the start.
Platform Fit
How I Work
Sales, finance and entity flows
Release to settlement map
Deposit handling review
Financier reporting review
Trust and SPV review
Requirements and selection
Lot and contract model
Sales platform boundaries
Project-based demo scripts
Weighted fit-gap
Implementation through settlement
Design reviews
Exchanged contract migration
Settlement run UAT
Early-life support
An off-the-plan sale in Australia creates a long-lived contract. On exchange the buyer typically pays a deposit, which is generally held in a trust account by an agent or lawyer until settlement, or secured by a deposit bond or guarantee instead of cash. The contract then waits for construction, plan registration and a notice to settle. Each state sets its own requirements on disclosure statements, cooling-off periods and sunset clauses, and these continue to evolve, so I confirm them with your lawyers rather than generalizing.
Developers often track all of this in agents' spreadsheets. I design a contract record per lot or apartment holding the buyer, price, deposit form and holder, special conditions, variations and every critical date, including the sunset date, with alerts well ahead of time. Finance can then see the value of exchanged contracts, the deposits held by others on the developer's behalf and the settlements expected each month. Variations and buyer upgrades attach to the same record, so the settlement figure is not reconstructed from emails at the last minute.
Banks and private lenders funding Australian residential projects usually require a level of qualifying presales before advancing construction funds, and they review progress claims through a quantity surveyor who reports on cost to date and cost to complete. Some lenders also scrutinize the quality of presales, such as buyer profile and deposit form.
I structure the development budget so it lines up with the financier's cost categories, record contract commitments as builders and consultants are engaged and connect the presale schedule directly to exchanged contracts. Monthly reporting then draws on live data: presales achieved, deposits held, budget against commitments, spend so far and the remaining forecast.
Projects are commonly held in a dedicated company or unit trust, with a trustee company, a development manager and investors or joint venture partners. Multi-entity accounting, intercompany fees and distributions to unit holders therefore belong in the requirements. When and how revenue and margin are recognized on settlement are matters for your accountant and auditor; my role is to ensure the system captures what they need. If you also build with your own crews, see my Australian construction ERP page.
Settlement brings together the contract price, deposit release, adjustments for rates and other outgoings, and loan repayment. Each settlement should create the right postings in the right project entity without someone re-keying the settlement statement.
GST is a significant consideration for new residential property. Developers may apply the margin scheme where eligible, and buyers of new residential premises may be required to withhold an amount of GST at settlement and pay it directly to the ATO, which the developer must then reconcile against its own reporting. Commercial lots and completed rental stock may be treated differently again. I document each scenario with your accountant, configure the system to follow their advice and test it, so the BAS draws on clean data.
Strata or community title registration, defects periods and handover to owners corporations follow settlement. If you keep completed stock for rental or manage buildings afterwards, the work continues on my property management ERP page.
Many Australian developers run Xero or MYOB per entity, with a feasibility model in Excel, agents' sales spreadsheets and a separate document store for contracts. That setup works for one project but strains once several stages, trusts and financiers are involved, or when a board or investor asks for consolidated reporting.
Migrating a live project means agreeing, for each lot, the contract value, variations, deposit form and holder, expected settlement and any outstanding conditions, and reconciling the totals with your lawyers and agents. That work is scoped under ERP data migration, with a cutover sequence for each stage.
Australian developers can choose from general ERPs, property development products and sales platforms. Because I am independent and receive nothing from vendors, I test them against your projects and recommend the leanest setup that meets the obligations, using ERP evaluation and implementation oversight. The cross-market overview sits on my real estate ERP consultant page, and national topics such as payroll, BAS and Xero or MYOB migration sit on the Australian ERP consultant page and in my Australia hub.
Tell me about your business and current systems. I’ll suggest the most sensible first step.
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FAQ
Yes. Each contract record can hold sunset, finance, cooling-off and settlement dates with alerts to the right people well in advance. The dates and the rules that apply come from your contracts and your state's legislation, which your lawyers confirm; the system makes sure nobody misses them.
A deposit bond is recorded on the contract as the deposit form, with the issuer, amount and expiry, instead of a cash receipt. At settlement the full price is collected and the bond lapses. I make sure your platform can hold both cash deposits and bonds, and report them separately for financiers.
Often, through a sales platform or restricted CRM access where agents see availability, place holds and track their contracts. Whatever tool agents use, stock status has to come from its single owner. Agent permissions and the data they can edit are settled during CRM and integration design.
No. Whether the margin scheme applies and how GST withholding at settlement works for your sales are questions for your accountant. My role is to capture their advice as written requirements, build test scenarios from it and make sure the configured system follows it consistently.
Every business is different. Share where you are today and what you want to fix, and I’ll tell you honestly whether and how I can help.
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