Brady Cost Management

07/06/2026

We get it.

Site capture is hard.

Daily diaries feel annoying
Progress photos get forgotten
SWMS feels like a chore

But you know what's harder?

Losing a dispute because you had no evidence to back your position.
Losing margin because you didn't get variations approved in writing.
Losing money you worked for because the paperwork wasn't there.

Choose your hard.
Once protects your business.
The other costs you.

If you need help setting up simple, practical systems for site capture, variations, or commercial admin, we can help you get it under control.

www.bradycostmanagement.com.au
www.costie.com.au

AI-powered quoting and cost management for Australian civil contractors. Create accurate quotes, track project costs, and get paid faster.

12/05/2026

💻When you quote a job, do you mark up your materials?

If you are not currently marking up your materials, you might want to consider the following:

Markup on materials covers all the work and risk that sits behind getting the right item, on site, on time, and standing behind it afterwards.

What markup actually covers:

✅Procurement time — sourcing, ordering, chasing suppliers
✅Finance — you pay your supplier and hold the costs until you get paid later by your client
✅Warranty pass-through — if the part fails, you wear the return trip and re-install
✅Wrong items, damaged deliveries, returns — all on your time
✅Freight, storage, and site delivery coordination (unless the cost is significant and should be quoted separate)

When a client pushes for "cost price" or "no markup," what they're actually asking is for you to run their procurement department for free, and carry the risk on top.

And here's the one a lot of trades miss —

If you've been asked to supply labour only and the client is supplying materials, double-check you're not still on the hook for them. More on this topic.

Follow us and check us out

Activity-based cost recovery, pricing strategy, contract administration, and compliance for civil contractors and trades businesses across Australia.

10/05/2026

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General rule of thumb on site:

If it's not written down, it didn't happen. 📝

Variations, delays, instructions from the superintendent — when it comes time to claim, your word against theirs won't cut it. A daily site diary is your proof.

We know you're flat out and don't have time to thumb-type on a phone, so Costie's site diary has voice-to-text built in. Talk it out, hit save, move on.

Have a look 👉 www.costie.com.au — site capture done quicker means you get paid quicker.
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06/05/2026

Quoting.

It's the single most important task in your business — and it's the one that gets the least attention.

We see it often. Small civil and trade businesses under the pump, trying to get quotes out the door fast. Flat unit rates. Copy-pasting last job's numbers. Outsourcing to someone who's never run a job or understood the risk.

Here's the thing: quoting isn't admin. It's the task that decides whether you make money on the next 6 months of work. It's the task that protects your commercial position. It's the task that sets you up to deliver the job successfully.

It deserves time, structure, and attention.

That's where we come in.

At Brady Cost Management and Costie CCM, we help small construction businesses take the pain out of quoting three ways:

→ Smart templates so you're not reinventing the wheel every job
→ AI-powered estimating to cut the heavy lifting
→ Fractional estimating support — picture this: someone experienced builds the estimate, you review, tweak, and send to your client

If quoting is eating your nights and weekends, let's have a chat.

Activity-based cost recovery, pricing strategy, contract administration, and compliance for civil contractors and trades businesses across Australia.

05/05/2026

You can quote 'profitable' jobs all year and still finish with nothing in the bank.

Sounds wrong. It isn't.

Most subbies set their uplift by gut feel — or by copying what they used on the last quote. The number covers materials and labour. It usually doesn't cover insurance, the ute, software, the accountant, the admin wage, or the rent on the yard. Those costs run whether you're on a job or not, and they have to come out of somewhere.

The new Cost Recovery Wizard in Costie sorts it out. Export 12 months of your P&L and balance sheet, and the wizard works out the uplift % you actually need — to recover your fixed overheads AND hit your target profit margin. It applies that rate across the quotes you build in Costie, then tracks recovery as each job runs, so you know in real time whether the price is doing its job.

No spreadsheets. No guesswork. No more 'same as last time.'

Live now for all Costie clients.

Book a consultation with us at

Ensure your projects are on budget and know your real cost position. Learn more about estimating, budgeting and controlling costs with our and project management costing expertise

28/03/2026

Exciting news from the Brady Cost Management team!

We are proud to introduce our in-house software ✨ Costie CCM — a Construction Cost Management platform built for small civil construction businesses who need simple to use software that provide real-time visibility over their job costs.

Costie helps you:
✅ Track quoted vs actual scope and costs across every job
✅ See where your money is going in real time
✅ Catch cost blowouts before they become a crisis
✅ Quote and estimate faster, without the spreadsheet chaos
✅ Schedule jobs and keep your team on the same page
✅ Track your crew hours and costs with GPS timesheets

Built from decades of hands-on experience in the industry.

We'd love you to take a look 👉 costie.com.au

Questions? Drop them below or send us a message.

27/01/2026

✨ Quoting Smarter… Not Faster ✨
I know many trades and construction businesses feel pressure to quote faster. With tight competition and busy schedules, it can feel like speed is the priority.

But here’s the truth:
Quoting is not something that should be rushed.
Yes — we absolutely want quoting to be efficient. But efficiency doesn’t mean cutting corners or guessing your way through scope and cost. In fact, the smartest (and most profitable) businesses I work with understand that:

👉 A quote isn’t just a number — it’s a plan.

My approach to quoting has always been about being smarter, not faster, by taking the time to clearly assess:
🔍 The scope of work
🔧 The activities required
👥 The resources and time needed
📦 The true cost of materials
💲 And finally, pricing to cover your real costs + return a profit

When you quote this way, something powerful happens:
✓ You stop undercharging.
✓ You stop squeezing your crew to “make it work”.
✓ You deliver quality work because you priced enough time to do it properly.
✓ Your business becomes more stable, predictable, and profitable.

Rushing a quote may save a few minutes today —
but quoting smarter can save (and make) thousands over the life of your business.

If you want help building a smarter quoting process for your trade business, I’m always here to help. 💬