Thousands of laws.
One retention schedule.
ScheduleOne works out which Australian retention requirements apply to your business, turns them into practical rules you can actually implement, and keeps them current.
For Australian businesses. Your schedule is built in your first session.
1,125 requirements. Different periods, different start points.
Three rules.
Every exception sourced.
A list of retention laws isn't a retention schedule.
A spreadsheet of obligations, or a legal search, hands you the raw material. It leaves the two hardest questions to you.
Most requirements don't apply to you.
Retention duties are scattered across tax, employment, safety, privacy, industry and state law. Many bind only certain industries, sizes, licences or activities. Working out which ones reach your business is the first job, and the easiest to get wrong.
The ones that do can't become hundreds of rules.
The requirements that apply still come with different periods and different start points. Nobody can run a business on hundreds of separate retention rules. They have to become a handful your team can remember, with the genuine exceptions kept visible.
ScheduleOne does both: it works out what applies to your business, then turns it into one rule wherever one rule works, and clear exceptions where it doesn't.
See ScheduleOne build a schedule.
Click through the real steps, from the first question to a law change a year later. This is the application's example business, with its real figures.
Turnover
Employees
Bands, not exact figures. Size decides whether laws like the Privacy Act reach you.
Jurisdictions
ACT, NT and Victoria coming
Industry
Activities
No legal knowledge needed. Anything that turns on a fact only you know is flagged to check, not guessed.
Years, each from its own start point: the client relationship ends, employment ends, the record is made.
| Record class | Keep | Basis | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Client records | 7 yearsafter the relationship ends | Rule | |
| Employee records | 7 yearsafter employment ends | Rule | |
| Business records | 7 yearsafter the record is made | Rule | |
| Health monitoring reportsEmployee records · WHS | 30 yearsafter the report is made | WHS Reg 2017 (NSW) reg 378 | |
| Health monitoring (asbestos)Employee records · WHS | 40 yearsafter the report is made | WHS Reg 2017 (NSW) reg 444 |
Showing 5 of the schedule's rows. Click Why? on an exception.
Why it applies to you
- You operate in NSW
- You employ workers
- You hold health information
Why it's an exception
Your employee rule keeps records 7 years after employment ends. This law needs 30 years from when the report is made, so the rule alone would destroy them too early.
No change needed.
Your 7-year client rule already meets the new 6-year minimum. The check is recorded against your schedule.
It starts with your business.
Tell ScheduleOne who you are. Every requirement records who it binds, and your profile is tested against all of them, so the law that reaches you comes with its reason.
~1,100: the two example businesses in the app have 1,125 (NSW aviation company) and 1,059 (NSW accounting firm). Your number depends on your profile.
You don't start with a blank spreadsheet.
The record groups every business holds appear straight away. Then your industry and activities layer in the records only businesses like yours keep.
Employees
- Pay and leave
- Superannuation
- Safety and incidents
Customers
- Accounts and files
- Complaints
- Personal information
Finance & Tax
- Financial records
- GST and income tax
- Tax file numbers
Contracts
- Agreements
- Variations
- Deeds
Suppliers
- Purchasing
- Invoices
- Supplier checks
Corporate
- Registers
- Minutes and resolutions
- Company records
Starter packs stay broad on purpose: everything that could apply is shown with its reason. Rationalisation, not guesswork, is what makes the schedule short.
One rule where possible. Clear exceptions where necessary.
Sixteen client-record requirements from a professional-services schedule. Fourteen collapse into one rule. Two stay separate, because the law genuinely needs something different.
7 years after the client relationship ends
Client records, whatever the profession, whichever state.
Finding the law is only the first step.
Research tells you what the law requires. A schedule has to say what the business should actually build, and who does what on Monday morning. ScheduleOne carries you from one to the other.
ScheduleOne was designed from experience implementing retention and disposal, not only researching it. The hard part was never finding the law. It was turning hundreds of requirements into rules people would actually follow, and keeping a record of why.
ScheduleOne doesn't replace legal advice. It does the research and the structuring, and shows its working, so your judgement and your lawyer's time go to the questions that need them.
Every answer has a paper trail.
You don't have to trust a black box. Open any rule and see why it applies to you, the law behind it, why this rule, and every change since.
7 years after the client relationship ends
Why this applies to you
Applicable legal obligations
Showing 4 of 14.
Why this rule
One period and one start point meet every one of the 14 client-record minimums in this schedule. Seven years is the longest of them, and the end of a client relationship is an event your systems already record.
The method is ScheduleOne's 7·7·7. You can compare it with the two other methods on your own requirements, and set your own business rules where you need to keep records longer.
Exceptions to this rule
Exact section and source
Version history
- Edition 3 · law update checkedA changed requirement checked against this rule: still covered. No action.
- Edition 2 · exceptions decidedBoth exceptions confirmed, with owner and reason recorded.
- Edition 1 · rule createdProposed by the 7·7·7 method from 16 requirements.
Example history. Each edition can be downloaded exactly as it stood.
- Why this applies to youEach requirement is tied to the profile answer that brought it in.
- The law's own wordsKept only if the quote is found word for word in the provision.
- Exact section, linkedOne click to the official legislation.
- Effective datesThe version of the law in effect, and the date the dataset is current to.
- Your decisions, recordedWho decided, when, and why.
- Version historyDated editions, recorded as they stood.
Exactly what you're buying.
A maintained retention schedule for your business: every record class, the rule that covers it, the law behind it and your decisions, ready to export and approve.
| Record class | Trigger | Final period | Legal basis | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Client records14 requirements | Client relationship ends | 7 years | Tax Agent Services Det. 2024 s 30 +13 more | Rule |
| Employee recordsPay, leave, super | Employment ends | 7 years | Fair Work Regulations 2009 + more | Rule |
| Business recordsFinance and tax | Record is made | 7 years | Corporations Act 2001 + more | Rule |
| Certificates and plansException | Certificate issued | 10 years | Certifiers Reg 2020 (NSW) cl 49 | Exception |
| Records held for an agencyException | As directed | As directed | State Records Act 1998 (NSW) s 21(1) | Exception |
| Project filesYour business rule | Project closes | 10 years | Override: insurer requirement | Override |
- A maintained schedulekept current
- Record classesgrouped
- Trigger for each rulestart point
- Final periodper class
- Legal basissection + quote
- Exceptionswith the law
- Your overrideswith reasons
- Excel export+ Word policy
- Version historydated editions
What it costs to solve this properly.
The comparison isn't another subscription. It's what your business would otherwise spend to get from the law to a schedule it can defend.
Research it yourself
- You pay in
- Weeks of staff time across tax, employment, safety, privacy, industry and state law
- You still need
- To know which laws apply, and turn them into rules
Commission bespoke legal research
- You pay in
- Professional fees, often per Act or per question
- You still need
- To rationalise the findings into a schedule, then keep it current
Buy a legal database
- You pay in
- A subscription, plus the time to search and interpret it
- You still need
- To work out what applies, and build the schedule
Use ScheduleOne
- Per year, plus GST
- What applies, rationalised into rules, the law beside each one, kept current
- You still need
- To make the business calls, with the law in front of you
“Keep it just in case” isn't the safe option.
Records you no longer need still have to be protected, found and accounted for. Keeping them indefinitely doesn't remove the risk; it adds to it.
More data, more exposure
Every record you hold is something that can be lost or breached. Personal information you no longer need adds to what's at stake without adding value.
The Privacy Act expects it
Under Australian Privacy Principle 11.2, personal information you no longer need for a permitted purpose must be destroyed or de-identified, subject to the law's exceptions.
Deleting too early is a risk too
Tax, employment, safety and industry laws set their own minimums, some running for decades. A schedule lets you delete on purpose, not by accident.
One product. One price.
Everything included.
- Australian requirements matched to your business
- Starter schedule with your industry and activity layers
- The 7·7·7 method, plus two others to compare
- Every exception with the law beside it
- Your overrides and decisions recorded with reasons
- Excel schedule, Word policy
- Law changes checked against your schedule all year
- A dated record of every confirmed edition
Coverage
The Acts and regulations that reach Australian businesses, in Commonwealth law and most states and territories. See exactly what's covered. Wherever you operate, you get every Commonwealth requirement.
Working for government? You're covered. The public records laws that reach contractors are built into your schedule, and records you hold for an agency are kept as that agency directs. How it works
Before you buy.
The questions risk, privacy and records people ask before they commit.
What does it cover?
Commonwealth law and most states and territories. Coverage lists exactly what's included, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, with figures that update as the law does. Wherever you operate you get every Commonwealth requirement, and when coverage is extended you see the new requirements as law changes to review.
Is this legal advice?
No. It's a schedule built from the legislation, with the source behind every rule and a record of your decisions. Your organisation reviews and approves it. When you want legal advice, your lawyer starts from a precise question and the provision that answers it, not a blank page.
What happens when requirements conflict?
Where one law sets a minimum and another sets a maximum or a destruction duty, ScheduleOne doesn't pick for you. It sets both out side by side, with their words, and records the decision you make. Longer minimums become named exceptions rather than being averaged away.
We provide services to government. Are we covered?
Yes. Our law lookup includes every retention duty, including those that apply only to government agencies. ScheduleOne is built for businesses, so the agency-only duties stay out of your schedule.
If you work for government, the laws that apply to you are included. Public records laws say you can't destroy records you hold for an agency without its permission. Those records get their own line in your schedule: keep them as the agency directs.
Can we set our own periods?
Yes. Business rules let you keep records longer than the law requires, for insurance, contracts or your own reasons. They're recorded as overrides, with your reason, and kept separate from what the law requires.
How do updates work?
When the legal dataset is updated, each change is checked against your approved schedule and you're told whether it's already covered, needs an exception, or needs a business rule reviewed. Most need nothing from you.
What can we export?
The full schedule in Excel, with the legal basis for every row, plus a retention and disposal policy in Word. Each confirmed edition is recorded with its date in your review history.
Do you need our actual records?
No. ScheduleOne works from your answers about your business, not your files. It doesn't connect to your systems, scan documents or delete anything.
Is our information secure?
Your account holds your business profile, your decisions and your schedule; no records or personal information from your files. Details of hosting and protection are on the security page.
How do you know the coverage is complete?
Every Act and regulation in force in each covered jurisdiction is processed. Each requirement is kept only if its quote is found word for word in the law, uncertain readings are looked at again, and the data is tested against provisions with known answers. How the data is built sets out what is guaranteed, and Coverage lists exactly what's included.
How is this different from Microsoft Purview or a records platform?
Those tools apply retention labels and delete content inside your systems. They don't tell you what the periods should be. ScheduleOne works out the rules and their legal basis; your records platform can then enforce them.
Retention, explained.
Practical writing on how Australian retention law works, and how to turn it into something a business can run.
Which laws apply to your business
Retention duties are spread across tax, employment, safety, privacy, industry and state law. What applies depends on a handful of facts about your organisation.
Article · 2 min readWhy three rules beat three hundred
A business can't run hundreds of separate retention rules. The aim of a schedule is the fewest rules that still meet every requirement, with exceptions made visible.
Article · 2 min readRunning a disposal routine people will actually follow
A schedule that says 'destroy after seven years' only works if someone does it. How to build a disposal routine that happens, and that you can show happened.
Article · 2 min readThe law can stay complicated.
Your schedule doesn't have to be.
A$1,000 a year plus GST. Your schedule built in your first session.
Cancel any time before renewal.