The toolkit for Security of Payment.
Sopal Decisions
Search 7,601 Queensland adjudication decisions, and see how adjudicators and nominating authorities have decided.
Also in the app: Sopal Tools, with the Research Agent, a flowchart of the process, and interest and due date calculators for QLD, NSW and VIC.
The purpose of a payment schedule is to clearly define the issues in dispute.
Adjudication decision under the BIF Act, 26 June 2019The whole purpose of a payment schedule is to identify what amounts are in dispute and the reasons why the amounts are in dispute.
Adjudication decision under the BIF Act, 2 June 2025The purpose of a payment schedule is to clearly define the issues in dispute.
Adjudication decision under the BIF Act, 24 March 2026
What Sopal is for
Sopal is for people running or answering an adjudication: claimants, respondents, their lawyers and claims preparers. It does three jobs.
The timetable is short
Under the Security of Payment Acts, most steps are counted in business days: 10 or 15 for a payment schedule, as few as 5 for an adjudication response. A missed day can decide the outcome.
The law is in the decisions
Thousands of adjudication decisions deal with the same arguments: late schedules, invalid claims, reasons not raised in time. They are published, but hard to search.
Your best precedent is your own
Firms, contractors and claims preparers keep years of submissions on shared drives, findable by file name only. Writing the next one usually starts from scratch.
Sopal Decisions
Public decisions, searchable. For anyone preparing or answering a Queensland adjudication application.
Find how a point has been decided
Decision search is full-text Boolean search over every published Queensland adjudication decision Sopal holds. Use it before you write submissions: find decisions on the issue, read how adjudicators reasoned, and cite them.
It works the way Lexis and Westlaw do: AND, OR, NOT, phrases in quotes, w/N for proximity, ! for wildcards, and filters.
- Results show the matching passages, highlighted.
- Open any decision in full.
- New decisions are added as they are published.
- Adjudication decision, 26 May 2026
…that is the payment schedule I must consider under the Act for the purposes of this Adjudication as the second payment schedule was issued out of time.
- Adjudication decision, 15 October 2025
I note that neither party has provided me with a copy of the purported payment schedule and the schedule was, in any event, out of time having been submitted after 19 August 2025…
- Adjudication decision, 27 August 2025
…the claimant reversed its position and argued inter alia that the payment schedule was invalid due to being served out of time.
See how adjudicators have decided
Adjudicators shows decision counts, award rates, claim sizes and fee splits for each adjudicator, drawn from their published decisions, with the decisions listed. Nominating Authorities groups outcomes by ANA affiliation, by year.
The figures describe published decisions. They are not an assessment of anyone and do not predict an outcome.
Across 7,350 Queensland decisions with both amounts recorded. Figures are drawn from the decisions by automated extraction and are approximate. In the app, the same figures are shown for each adjudicator.
A real search of the Sopal database. Three of the results, from three different adjudicators, quoted as written.
The purpose of a payment schedule is to clearly define the issues in dispute.
Adjudication decision under the BIF Act, 26 June 2019The whole purpose of a payment schedule is to identify what amounts are in dispute and the reasons why the amounts are in dispute.
Adjudication decision under the BIF Act, 2 June 2025The purpose of a payment schedule is to clearly define the issues in dispute.
Adjudication decision under the BIF Act, 24 March 2026
Decisions by year
Every published Queensland adjudication decision Sopal holds, under the 2004 Act and the BIF Act.
- 7,601
- decisions
- 2004
- first decision
- 2026
- latest decision
| Year | Decisions |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 1 |
| 2005 | 76 |
| 2006 | 299 |
| 2007 | 404 |
| 2008 | 472 |
| 2009 | 756 |
| 2010 | 604 |
| 2011 | 465 |
| 2012 | 516 |
| 2013 | 533 |
| 2014 | 428 |
| 2015 | 390 |
| 2016 | 326 |
| 2017 | 250 |
| 2018 | 257 |
| 2019 | 325 |
| 2020 | 232 |
| 2021 | 167 |
| 2022 | 179 |
| 2023 | 223 |
| 2024 | 221 |
| 2025 | 210 |
| 2026 | 154 |
Sopal Tools
Research and calculators for QLD, NSW and VIC.
Ask a question, get the sources
The Research Agent answers Security of Payment questions. It reads the legislation (49 Acts and regulations for QLD, NSW, VIC and the Commonwealth), Sopal’s decisions and the courts’ judgment databases, and cites the primary sources it relies on.
Use it to check a time limit, find the section that governs a step, or see how a question has been treated.
When must a payment schedule be given in Queensland?
- legislation search "payment schedule" --qldBuilding Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld)
- legislation read "BIF Act" "s 76"76 Responding to payment claim
- decisions search "payment schedule" w/15 "out of time"173 decisions
- caselaw search "payment schedule" --court QCACourt judgments
Within whichever of these ends first: the period the contract allows, or 15 business days after the payment claim is given.
Source: Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld) s 76(1).
Work out the dates
The due date calculator gives each time limit in the process, with the section it comes from, for QLD, NSW and VIC. It counts business days and public holidays. The interest calculator works out interest on a late progress payment.
The flowchart shows the whole process, step by step, and links each step to the calculator.
Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld)
- Payment claimStarts the timetable
- Payment schedule15 business days, or earlier under the contracts 76(1)
- Adjudication application30 business days after receiving the schedules 79(2)(b)(iii)
- Adjudication responseLater of 10 and 7 business days (standard claim)s 83(1)
- Adjudicator's decision10 business days (standard claim)s 85(1)
Sopal Workspace
A private library of the submissions your organisation has written. For law firms, and for contractors and claims preparers who keep their own adjudication documents.
A library that files itself
Upload PDFs and Word files, one at a time, by folder or as a zip. Each set of submissions is read and filed by document type, parties, State, amounts and date. Duplicates are flagged.
| Document | State | Pages | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adjudication applicationSubcontractor v Head contractor | QLD | 46 | ReadingFiled |
| Adjudication responseBuilder v Developer | NSW | 38 | ReadingFiled |
| Further submissionsElectrical contractor v Builder | QLD | 12 | ReadingFiled |
| Adjudication applicationFormwork contractor v Builder | VIC | 61 | ReadingFiled |
| Adjudication responseHead contractor v Principal | QLD | 54 | ReadingFiled |
Go straight to the passage
Search the full text of every page with the same Boolean connectors as Decisions. Or ask in plain English, such as “which of our submissions argued the payment schedule was given late?”, and SopalAI answers from your library, opening each source at the page.
Which of our submissions argued the payment schedule was given late?
One application makes that argument.
Adjudication application – ABC Subcontractor v DEF Head Contractor, Part D. The payment schedule was given on the sixteenth business day, one day out of time. p 9
D. The payment schedule was not given within time
41.The claimant gave Payment Claim 14 to the respondent at 3.47 pm on Tuesday, 3 March 2026, by email to the address nominated in item 22 of the Contract Particulars.
42.The Contract does not fix a period for giving a payment schedule shorter than the period allowed by the Act. The respondent was therefore required to give a payment schedule within 15 business days after the payment claim was given: s 76(1) of the Act.
43.The fifteenth business day after 3 March 2026 was Tuesday, 24 March 2026. No day in that period is excluded from the definition of “business day” in schedule 2 of the Act.
44.The respondent’s document headed “Payment Schedule – PC14” was sent by email at 6.12 pm on Wednesday, 25 March 2026. It was given on the sixteenth business day, one day out of time.
Draft from your own precedents
Ask for a submission or part of one. SopalAI reads how you argued the point before, then the Act, case law and adjudication decisions, and writes in your format. The draft opens in a Word-accurate document, and its edits show as tracked changes.
The “draft assessment” of 24 March 2026 was not a payment schedule
45.The claimant anticipates that the respondent will contend that the email sent by its contract administrator at 5.58 pm on 24 March 2026, attaching a spreadsheet headed “PC14 – draft assessment (subject to review)”, was a payment schedule given within time.
46.It was not. A payment schedule must identify the payment claim to which it responds and state the amount of the payment, if any, that the respondent proposes to make: s 69 of the Act. The draft assessment was plainly deficient.
SopalAI · replaced a conclusion with the two facts that support it
Hand over the matter’s files
Computer mode works through a project’s documents on an isolated machine in Sydney. It lists the files, reads what it needs, finds the precedent, checks the Act and decisions, and writes. Each step shows as it happens.
Security
- Private to your organisation
- Only the people you invite can see your library.
- Zero data retention
- SopalAI runs under an enterprise agreement with OpenAI with zero data retention switched on.
- In Sydney
- The app, the database, file storage and the Computer’s machines all run in Sydney.
- Your sign-in
- Authenticator apps are supported. Sessions end after 8 hours of inactivity.