Found by builders. Proposals won. Enquiries logged.

Asked to recommend a local business in two Blue Mountains towns, an AI assistant named none at all.2 Type “structural engineer” and Google suggests Penrith and Parramatta.3

Large professional services firms pay small suppliers slower than any other industry, 39.1 days against 27-day terms, where all industries average 27.2.8 Professional services are 5.0% of jobs across the thirteen councils against 9.9% for NSW, small practices serving builders and home owners.9

A duty of care owed to every later owner cannot be delegated to software.6 Four statutes govern what you may advertise, and nothing we write claims a registration you do not hold.4

Your practice software may already do quotes, invoicing and reporting: WorkflowMax says so on its own page, read 22 September 2026.5 The 2026 Act that replaces these rules mostly awaits a proclamation.7

1. Verified. Google’s AI features documentation, 10 December 2025: “There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary.” The four things that get a page quoted are a controlled study of 252,000 trials, arXiv:2605.25517; our Get Found page carries it in full.
2. Measured by us. Two questions put to an AI assistant on 25 August 2026 for a Blue Mountains business: asked for the best agents in the Lower Blue Mountains it named two franchise brands and no local firm; asked who to use to sell a house in Glenbrook or Blaxland it named no local business at all. One day and two questions is a shape, not a benchmark, and the reason we re-run the questions monthly for every client.
3. Measured, and localised to one machine. Google’s public autocomplete endpoint with the Australian parameter, 15 September 2026, raw responses saved: “structural engineer” returns Penrith and Parramatta first after the bare term, “draftsman” and “private certifier” return Penrith, and “building certifier” returns “building certifiers public register” and “building certifier register”. The machine is in the Blue Mountains, so this shows how local the search is, not how many people make it.
4. Verified. NSW in-force texts read in the browser on 15 September 2026, penalty units converted at AU$110 under the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 s 17. Architects Act 2003 s 9(1): an individual must not represent himself or herself to be an architect unless registered (AU$11,000); s 10(1) does the same for a corporation or firm without a nominated architect (AU$22,000). It binds building designers and drafters, not engineers or surveyors. Surveying and Spatial Information Act 2002 s 21(1): a person must not carry out or “advertise that he or she is willing to carry out a land survey for fee or reward” unless a registered land surveyor (AU$5,500). Building and Development Certifiers Act 2018 s 43: a person must not, to secure work, represent that work can be carried out only by a registered certifier unless it is certification work (AU$33,000). Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 s 58: no false representation that a person is registered or can do registered work (AU$66,000 for a body corporate).
5. Verified. WorkflowMax (workflowmax.com), read 22 September 2026: “MCP Server - Give your AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT direct access to WorkflowMAX”, “AI expense extraction”, “AI reporting insights”, “Online Quote Acceptance (eQuote)”, “Quote Variations”, a “Sales Pipeline” and Xero integration. Total Synergy (totalsynergy.com), read the same day: budgets, quotes, invoicing, timesheets and resource allocation, with no AI feature named on its home page, unchanged from 15 September 2026. Which plan includes each feature, and whether small NSW practices use them, was not checked.
6. Verified. Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (NSW), version current from 10 June 2026, read in the browser on 15 September 2026. s 37: a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid economic loss caused by defects, owed to “each owner of the land” and “each subsequent owner”. s 39: “A person who owes a duty of care under this Part is not entitled to delegate that duty.” s 40(2): no contract can exclude it. s 32: unregistered professional engineering work in a prescribed area carries up to 1,500 penalty units for a body corporate (AU$165,000), and money paid for it is recoverable as a debt. s 9(7): a design compliance declaration known to be false in a material particular, “2,000 penalty units or imprisonment for 2 years, or both”. Registration applies to class 2, 3 and 9c buildings, being apartments, shared residential and aged care; a house is not one.
7. Verified as not commenced; its content reported. The in-force pages for both Acts carry the note that the Building (Approvals and Practitioners) Act 2026 No 26 is not commenced, and that the Certifiers Act is to be repealed on its commencement. Law firm summaries, read as secondaries on 15 and 16 September 2026, say it passed on 4 August 2026, was assented to on 14 August 2026, creates a single registration framework for certifiers, engineers, designers and builders, and “will reproduce the duty of care in substantially the existing form”; all but two items commence by proclamation. No commencement date had been announced as at 22 September 2026. Nothing on this page treats it as law. Rechecked by build against tools/rechecks.json.
8. Verified. Payment Times Reporting Regulator, Regulator’s update, August 2026, Reporting Cycle 10, 1 July to 31 December 2025, read 15 September 2026. Professional, Scientific and Technical Services as the large business paying, from 252 reporting entities: common term 27 days, average payment time 39.1 days, the longest average of the 19 industries; across all industries, 29 days and 27.2 days. The Regulator’s own sentence: average payment times “suggesting the Manufacturing industry generally makes payments within agreed terms whereas the Professional, Scientific and Technical industries often do not”. It measures large businesses paying small suppliers, so it describes the consultancy you subcontract to, not your own clients. Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) s 6(1)(b): related goods and services include “architectural, design, surveying or quantity surveying services in relation to construction work” and engineering advisory services; a payment claim must state that it is made under the Act. Whether it reaches a home owner’s own contract with a designer was not tested, so we do not promise it.
9. Measured. .id, economy.id council profiles, “Employment by industry”, NIEIR modelled series, 2024/25, all thirteen councils read 15 September 2026: 56,696 professional, scientific and technical services jobs of 1,145,149, so 5.0%, against the 9.9% NSW benchmark printed on the same pages. These are jobs located in the councils, not businesses.