FAQ

Gate Ready helps you write a Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) and collect worker sign-on. It suggests hazards, controls and PPE for the job, and you check each one and add your own. It doesn’t check that your SWMS meets the law or a site’s rules, and it doesn’t replace advice from your regulator or a safety professional. You are responsible for your SWMS and for making sure the work is done the way it says.

Yes. We have a sample SWMS, with a site plan and marked-up photos, for Electricians, Roofers, Plumbers, Carpenters, Builders, Concreters, Painters and Tilers. Each page also shows the controls and tasks Gate Ready suggests for that trade. More trades are coming.

No, Gate Ready doesn't store your signed SWMS. It doesn't keep signed copies for you, and we never see them. When you finalise a SWMS, the app keeps the finished PDF and signatures on your phone until you choose Clear sensitive information and confirm you've saved or sent the PDF. Clearing deletes them and can't be undone, so your exported copy is the record. Keep it. Job details and drafts stay on your phone so you can revise or reuse them.

You don't sign up or log in to Gate Ready. When you subscribe, your App Store or Google Play account handles billing and your subscription. Gate Ready has no cloud storage of your SWMS.

Yes, you can try Gate Ready before setting up your business. When you first open the app you can choose Try it with sample jobs. You’ll see a sample roofing business with jobs you can open, sign on and export. The sample jobs are kept separate from your own and are removed when you leave them, and trying them doesn’t use your free SWMS.

Mostly, yes. It is built for patchy reception, so you can draft, sign on and export without a signal. The app checks your subscription when it is online. If it can't check for 14 days, you can keep working on SWMS you have already started, but you can't start a new one until it reconnects. Sending a SWMS on by text or email still needs a connection, like any message.

Only for a few things. When you open it, the app asks the App Store or Google Play whether an update is available, and it checks your subscription. Subscription checks and purchases go through the store and our subscription provider, RevenueCat, using an anonymous ID. They never include your SWMS, business or crew details. If there’s no signal the app carries on for up to 14 days. After that it needs to check your subscription before you can start a new SWMS.

Sending or sharing a SWMS uses your phone’s share sheet and goes where you send it. There are no analytics or advertising tools in the app.

Some updates are required. When an update changes the rules, the app asks you to install it before you continue, and your drafts and jobs stay on your phone. Smaller updates are optional. You can check any time in Settings under About Gate Ready and updates.

All Australian states and territories. The rules are built around each one’s regulator, legislation, fall-height thresholds and high-risk categories, including Victoria’s separate OHS regime and the ACT’s crystalline silica rules. In the app, Settings shows the laws and versions Gate Ready uses for each state, and the rules status page lists them too.

You still need to check the result against your job, your site and your regulator.

More than 70, from builders, carpenters and roofers to plumbers, electricians, landscapers, arborists and asbestos removalists. See the full list on the trades page.

A Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) is a document that sets out high-risk construction work, the hazards and how each one will be controlled. The people doing the work should have it explained to them before they start.

In most of Australia a SWMS is required before high-risk construction work starts, such as work at height, work involving asbestos or work near moving mobile plant. The rules differ by state and territory, so check with your regulator. Gate Ready is a drafting tool and can't tell you what the law requires of you.

Fixed rules decide, and AI doesn’t. Gate Ready picks out likely high-risk work from your job description (for example work at height, asbestos or trenching), including heights you mention such as “3 m above the ground”. It asks a few follow-up questions, then suggests hazards, controls and PPE. You can change any of it.

When a job might disturb existing materials in an older building, it shows asbestos as worth checking and asks the building’s age, rather than assuming.

Yes, you can open three example SWMS as PDFs. The sample SWMS on the features page are real PDFs made by Gate Ready for a made-up business. They are a roof re-sheet in Victoria, a sewer trench in NSW and a switchboard replacement in Queensland. They’re marked SAMPLE and aren’t for use on site.

More than 70 trades, from roofing, plumbing and electrical to scaffolding, concreting, landscaping, traffic control, asbestos removal and tree services. There are also over 150 common tasks, such as “Replace roof sheeting on a pitched roof” or “Install ceiling insulation”. Choosing one fills in a starting description, the work steps and the usual everyday hazards, and you change anything to match the job.

Yes, Gate Ready covers everyday hazards like noise and manual handling. Each SWMS covers all 20 high-risk construction work categories. It can also include everyday hazards that principal contractors expect to see. These are manual handling, noise, sun and heat, hazardous chemicals, power tools, slips and trips, dust, crystalline silica, hot work and fatigue. They’re suggested from the job description and your trades, and listed in their own section of the SWMS. You can also type in a hazard of your own and add controls for it.

Yes, you can reuse a SWMS as a job template. Open a finished SWMS and choose Save as template. Next time, choose Use a job template when you start a new SWMS. Your description, work steps, controls, hazards and PPE come with it.

The site details (address, dates, principal contractor and emergency details) start blank. The high-risk questions are asked again for the new site, because every SWMS has to fit its own site. If the template was made for another state, Gate Ready tells you, so you can check that state’s rules.

Yes, you can put your logo on every SWMS. Add your logo in Settings under your business details. It appears with your business name, ABN and contact details at the top of every SWMS, and Gate Ready shows how the header will look before you save. You can turn the header off if you prefer.

Yes, you can add a site plan and photos in the installed app. There's an optional Site plan and photos step. You can draw a plan in the app. You can also take a photo of a paper sketch, or choose an image from your library, such as a screenshot of a map, and draw over it. Photos can be taken or chosen, then marked up with safety symbols, lines, zones, arrows, text and numbered markers. The plan and photos print as appendices after the main SWMS.

Yes, you can show where each photo was taken, if the SWMS has a site plan. You can pin each photo to a spot on the plan and, if you like, set the direction it faces. The pin numbers follow the photo numbers. Photos you don't pin still print as normal. The plan prints with a legend built from the symbols you used, and Not to scale is added automatically.

Yes, you can add photos on a site visit. In the Site ready steps for a visit, tap + Add photo to add visit photos when conditions change on site. They print with the SWMS and carry into the next version.

Photos and plans are kept on your phone, in the app's own storage, and we don't see them. Photos you take in the app aren't also saved to your photo library. Site plans and photos are available in the installed app and are switched off in the sample jobs. Many photos make the PDF larger and slower to build, so the app suggests keeping only the ones that show something different.

Yes, you can send a draft to someone to check before you finalise. Choose Preview as PDF on the last step to open a draft in your phone’s share sheet, then email it to yourself or someone else to check. The draft is clearly marked DRAFT, has no SWMS number and nothing to sign, so it can’t be mistaken for the finished SWMS. Come back to edit or finalise.

After you finalise, Site ready lets you send a preview, for example to a WHS supervisor, before you send the final PDF. Every page is marked PREVIEW - NOT FOR USE ON SITE.

Workers can sign on your phone, on a printable wet-signature sheet, or both. You choose for each site visit. Signed sheets that come back, as photos or PDFs, and any other documents a supervisor asks for, are added into the one PDF.

If someone was sent your SWMS and doesn't have Gate Ready, they can sign the PDF with a free PDF app. The sign page shows how.

No, not if nothing has changed. When you come back to a site, choose Start the next site visit and answer a few review questions. If the work, the site conditions and the crew are the same, record the review and the crew who’ve already signed on carry on. Only new workers sign. If something has changed, you revise the SWMS and everyone signs the new version.

Some sites require everyone to sign on at each visit, so you can still start a new sign-on sheet when you need to.

Your first SWMS is free. Then there's a one-month free trial, and after that Gate Ready is $24.99 per month, including GST. It's billed by the App Store or Google Play, and you can cancel any time in your store account.

A lapsed subscription only stops you starting new SWMS. Your existing SWMS still open, sign and export.

Yes, you can move Gate Ready to a new phone. On your old phone go to Settings and choose Export my work, then choose Import from a file on the new phone. The file holds drafts, job details, your business details and logo, job templates and settings. Signatures are never included, so send or save your PDFs first.

You can export a transfer file and import one at any time. Phone backups don’t move between iPhone and Android.

Gate Ready doesn't back anything up itself. If you have your phone's own backup switched on (iCloud on iPhone, Auto Backup on Android), it may include Gate Ready's working data. That backup belongs to Apple or Google, not to us, and it may be switched off, out of date or fail to restore, so we can't promise it will work. As good practice, save a backup file away from your phone now and then. Go to Settings, then Backup and sharing, then Export my work. Once you clear a finalised SWMS, its signed copy is gone from the app, so keep your exported PDFs.

Yes, Gate Ready reminds you when licences and insurance expire. It sets reminders on your phone for expiring licences, tickets and insurance, signatures that aren’t finalised and drafts that are due to start. You can change the timing. For insurance, the app keeps certificate of currency numbers and expiry dates only, not the files.

Android groups some basic technical permissions together, and Google Play lists them on the app’s page. Gate Ready uses them for these things:

View network connections and full network access: so the app can tell whether you’re online, confirm your subscription and check for required updates. Your SWMS stay on your phone.

Run at startup: so your reminders are set again after your phone restarts.

Prevent device from sleeping: so Gate Ready can wake your phone briefly to show a reminder, such as an expiring licence or an unsigned SWMS, on time.

Google Play licence check: a standard Google Play permission that lets the app confirm it was installed from Google Play.

The app uses your camera only when you tap Add photo, and it has no analytics or advertising tools. See our Privacy page for what is kept on your phone.

You can record 35 types. They include builder, electrical and plumbing licences, high-risk work licences (like scaffolding, dogging, rigging and cranes), White Cards, working at heights and confined space tickets. You can also record asbestos removal, traffic control, first aid, CPR and screening checks. Gate Ready suggests the ones common for your trades and reminds you before they expire.

It links to our sign page. That page explains how someone you sent your SWMS to can sign it on their phone with a free PDF app, even without Gate Ready. Next to it, the SWMS also prints the address of our rules status page, which lists the law versions Gate Ready applied. You can turn the QR code and website link off in Settings.

Vision and Beyond Pty Ltd, an Australian company.