Industry
Risk and safety across every project, not every spreadsheet
Principal contractors carry the obligation for everyone on site - their own crews, subcontractors and labour hire. Frontline keeps one register across every project, with the evidence attached.
What does a principal contractor have to be able to prove?
A principal contractor carries the duty for everyone on site - their own crews, subcontractors and labour hire - and has to be able to show, for any given day, what the hazards were, what controls were in place, and that the people doing the work were competent and inducted. That evidence is normally spread across SWMS folders, a subcontractor's inbox and a group chat. Frontline holds one register across every project with the evidence attached to the record it supports, captured from the phone the crew already has.
- One project register that rolls into a group view without merging exports
- Subcontractor insurances and inductions visible before mobilisation
- SWMS versioned, with per-worker acknowledgement recorded
- Capture works offline and syncs when the device reconnects
The reality
The site moves faster than the paperwork
Construction risk is not static. A project changes shape weekly, the workforce changes daily, and the obligation sits with the principal contractor the entire time.
SWMS live in a folder on the site office laptop. Inductions live in a subcontractor's inbox. Incidents get written on a paper form, photographed, sent to a group chat, and typed up on Friday if someone remembers. When the regulator asks what controls were in place on a specific day, the answer is a search through four systems and a phone call.
None of this is a discipline problem. It is a capture problem: the systems ask the site to stop and fill in a form, so the site fills it in later, or not at all.
- Capture from the phone in the crew's hand - voice, photo, partial detail
- Structure applied after capture, so nobody fights a form on a scaffold
- One register spanning projects, depots and mobile plant
What it handles
The work that actually fills a site manager's week
Project risk registers
One register per project that rolls into a group view, without anyone merging exports at month end.
Subcontractor management
Prequalification, insurances and induction status per company and per person, with expiry visible before mobilisation.
Incidents and near misses
Reported from the phone in seconds. Investigation, actions and corrective work all hang off the original record.
Plant and equipment
Pre-starts, servicing and defects against the asset, so a machine's history travels with it between projects.
Inspections and audits
Scheduled or ad hoc, on your own checklists, with findings that become actions automatically.
SWMS and high-risk work
Current versions on site, acknowledged by the people doing the work, with the acknowledgement recorded.
Training and tickets
Competencies and expiries per person, flagged before a ticket lapses rather than after.
Client and board reporting
The monthly HSE pack generated from live data instead of rebuilt from exports.
Obligation mapping
Where each obligation lives
The question every safety manager asks before a demo: does this cover what we are actually required to do?
| Obligation | What it requires | Where it lives in Frontline |
|---|---|---|
| WHS Act - primary duty of care | Identify hazards, assess and control risk, review controls | Risk register with inherent and residual scoring, controls with owners and verification dates |
| WHS Regulations - high-risk construction work | A SWMS prepared before work starts, reviewed and available on site | Document control with version history and per-worker acknowledgement |
| WHS Regulations - notifiable incidents | Notify the regulator, preserve the site, keep records for 5 years | Incident record with timestamped capture, evidence attached, retention held |
| ISO 45001 - clause 6.1 | Documented hazard identification and risk assessment process | The register itself, plus the full change history behind it |
| ISO 45001 - clause 9.1 | Monitoring, measurement, analysis and performance evaluation | Analytics with leading and lagging indicators against your own thresholds |
| Contractor duties | Verify competency and insurance before workers mobilise | Subcontractor register with expiry tracking and pre-mobilisation checks |
Mapping is indicative and reflects the Australian model WHS laws. We'll walk your specific obligations on the call.
Questions we get asked
Will the crews actually use it?
That is the whole design constraint. Capture is voice, photo or a few words from a phone, with structure applied afterwards by the system rather than demanded upfront by a form. If a tool needs a training day, the site will not use it.
Does it work when a site has no signal?
Capture works offline in the browser and syncs when the device reconnects, so a basement level or a remote job does not mean a lost record.
We already use SafetyCulture for inspections. Do we replace it?
No. Inspection results flow in and attach to the risks and assets they relate to. Frontline is the register and the analysis layer over what your teams already capture.
What about subcontractors who won't adopt another system?
They don't need an account. Their companies, people, insurances and inductions are tracked in your register, and they submit through a link rather than a licence.
See it on your sites, your risks, your language.
We'll load a slice of your real data when your spot comes up so you're reacting to your own operation, not a sample one.
- We take a few teams at a time
- Configured to your framework
- No IT project