By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Why does getting this wrong cost a surveying business more than it looks like?
Misclassifying a field crew member, a drafting subcontractor or a GPS operator can leave a surveying business owing unpaid superannuation, facing a payroll tax assessment, or named in a sham contracting case, on top of the cost of running the detail survey, subdivision or set out itself. The exposure sits quietly in the crew roster and the invoice folder, not in the fee quoted to the developer or council, so it often only surfaces when an audit or a dispute forces a proper look.
A surveying business rarely has one answer that fits everyone on the job. The licensed cadastral surveyor whose licence lets them sign the plan may be on the books as an employee, while the field crew doing the boundary pegging, the contour survey or the as-built measurement is paid as a contractor through an invoice. A drone operator brought in for one subdivision might look like a contractor on paper, but if the business owns the drone, sets the hours and tells them exactly how to fly the job, that picture can change. None of this shows up by looking at the ABN on the invoice; it comes from the data on how each person is actually engaged, job by job.
What does the ATO say decides whether your surveyor or crew member is an employee or a contractor?
According to the ATO, you need to look at the whole working relationship rather than relying on an ABN, an invoice, or a title like 'contract surveyor'. The Employee or independent contractor page sets out a table of factors, such as who controls how the set out or the contour survey is carried out, who supplies the total station, GPS unit or drone, and whether the worker is genuinely running their own survey business, and no single factor on that table decides the answer on its own.
The ATO also says, on its hiring a new worker page, that an employee works for your surveying business while an independent contractor is running their own, and that it is against the law to wrongly treat an employee as a contractor. It flags that you may still have to pay super for a contractor if their contract is mainly for their labour, which often matters for a surveyor or crew member engaged to do field work on a boundary or subdivision job rather than to deliver a finished plan or report. AI agents that track each engagement can hold this table of factors against the data from each job, rather than you rechecking it from memory every time a new field crew member starts.
What does the Fair Work Ombudsman's whole of relationship test look at?
The Fair Work Ombudsman's whole of relationship test looks at financial risk, who can delegate the work, and how the contract is actually performed, not just what the paperwork says. A surveyor who carries the risk of a poor boundary measurement, insures their own equipment and can send someone else to do the detail survey looks more like a contractor than one who is told when to turn up and cannot delegate the set out to anyone else.
This test applies with one version for workers already engaged before August 2024 and a different version from August 2024 onward, as explained on the Fair Work Ombudsman's independent contractors page. The Ombudsman is upfront that it cannot decide a case for you, only give information to help you work through it, which is exactly why the factors need to be checked against how your own field crew and drafting subcontractors are actually engaged, not assumed from a title or a contract written years ago.
Could paying a survey subcontractor through an ABN get you into trouble?
Yes, if the reality of the job does not match the label. The Fair Work Ombudsman's page on sham contracting explains that telling a worker they are a contractor when they are actually an employee can be sham contracting, unless the business can show it reasonably believed otherwise, and it is illegal to represent someone as a contractor without that reasonable belief.
A media release on sham contracting from the Fair Work Ombudsman also makes clear a surveying business must not knowingly mislead a field crew member into becoming a contractor to keep doing the same boundary, as-built or set out work, or dismiss someone as an employee only to bring them back as a contractor for the same job. This matters for a surveying business that moves a long-serving crew member from wages to invoices without anything else about the job changing.
Does this change your GST, super or payroll tax position?
It can. Queensland Revenue Office explains that if the ATO's rules say someone is an employee, they are generally treated as an employee for payroll tax too, and if they are genuinely a contractor, payments to them may still be taxable under a relevant contract unless an exemption applies, as set out on its differences between contractors and employees page.
New South Wales applies a similar relevant contract rule, explained on the contractors and payroll tax page from Revenue NSW, where a contractor who supplies the services of a worker, such as a drafting subcontractor working through their own firm, can be deemed an employee for payroll tax even while being a genuine contractor for other purposes. Rules differ between states and territories, so a surveying business running set outs for a developer in one state and a subdivision in another needs to check the rule for each one rather than assuming they match. This is where keeping the engagement data current beats doing it from memory. A surveying business that only checks classification once, when a crew member starts, can miss the point where the working relationship has quietly changed, say when a contractor who used to bring their own gear starts using the firm's GPS and drone on every job. Data first means the record of how each person is actually engaged, their equipment, their invoices, their hours, sits next to the job data, not in a filing cabinet looked at once a year. AI agents, software that does a job the way you would, with your prices, wording and rules, can hold that record for every field crew member and subcontractor across every boundary survey, subdivision and set out, and flag when the pattern on a job starts looking more like employment than contracting. This is general information, not legal, tax or employment advice. Check your own situation with the body named here or a qualified adviser.
Where can you check the current rules?
- Hiring a new worker - the ATO's overview of classifying workers and the super and legal obligations that follow.
- Independent contractors - the Fair Work Ombudsman's starting point, including which test applies and when.
- Whole of relationship test - the factors used to assess relationships for workers covered from August 2024.
- Employee or independent contractor - the ATO's detailed table of indicia for tax and super purposes.
- Sham contracting - what sham contracting is and when a business can be found to have engaged in it.
- Differences between contractors and employees - Queensland Revenue Office's explanation of how this affects payroll tax.
- Contractors and payroll tax - Revenue NSW's explanation of the relevant contract rule.
- Sham contracting in the spotlight - a Fair Work Ombudsman media release on what employers must not do when moving workers to contracts.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching starts from how each person on your surveying business is actually engaged, not from a title or a feeling about who is basically staff. Greg Allan's approach pulls the job data, the invoices, the hours and the equipment records together through the Trade Business Intelligence, so the pattern on a real boundary survey or subdivision job is what gets checked, not a guess made long after someone started. That often shows the root sits somewhere different to where the owner first looked, in how a role changed over time rather than in the contract signed at the start. The how, working through that record and deciding what to fix first, is taught inside the Academy, with members, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member who is open minded, innovative and willing to share.
