Northing is the practice system for Queensland town planners. One job record carries a development application from the first enquiry to the decision notice and the invoice — the statutory clock, the planning profile, the scope letter, every council email, every phase and fee — so nothing lives in a spreadsheet, an inbox or someone's memory.
Built on the Queensland Planning Act 2016 and the DA Rules
All 77 Queensland councils
Hosted in Sydney
No card needed to start
Day 0enquiry
An enquiry arrives
It lands in the practice, not in someone's inbox.
A new client fills in the enquiry form on your website, or emails the practice. Northing creates the enquiry, reads the email, matches it to the right job and planner, and flags it if the client wants a call. Enquiries sit in a register with a workflow step that says exactly who has the ball — profile to prepare, scope to review, with the client — and the office admin sees what's theirs on one dashboard.
The record now shows: the site, the client, "Enquiry — profile to prepare".
Day 1site
The site, read in minutes
A planning profile for any lot in Queensland.
Enter the lot and Northing looks up the zone and precinct, checks every Queensland Government overlay and every council planning-scheme overlay it can reach against live mapping, and lists the assessment codes from the scheme's own tables. Where a council only publishes a picture, Northing reads the picture. Each overlay keeps its map, its source and who confirmed it, and the maps stay with the record for the PDF and the client.
The record now shows: zone, three overlays that apply, a map of each, the codes to assess against.
Day 2scope
The scope letter
The scope of work writes itself up from the profile.
Phase fees, the overlays and codes that apply, the overlay maps and the council's current application fees — drawn from a fee schedule Northing checks every week for republications — go into a scope-of-work letter in the practice's own template. The planner adjusts a figure or a paragraph, the client signs it online, and the enquiry becomes a project.
The record now shows: scope sent and signed, $9,450 of fees across three phases.
Day 0lodged
Lodgement
Forward the council's email. That is the data entry.
When the confirmation notice arrives, forward it to the practice's Northing address. The lodgement date, the application number and every statutory deadline are set from it, the attachment is filed on the job, and the clock starts counting business days under the Planning Act. The record is the source of truth from here on, and every manual change is stamped with who made it.
The record now shows: MCU/2026-0481, lodged 3 June, decision due in 35 business days.
Day 12paused
The clock
Information requests, referrals and extensions, counted properly.
An information request is recorded against the clock and the decision period waits for the response. A referral agency's response, a public notification period and an extension agreed with council are each recorded and every deadline view works to them, with the statutory end kept alongside. Each weekday at 7:30 the whole practice gets one digest: what's due, what's at risk, who holds the ball. Promises — "council said Friday" — are logged and chased.
The record now shows: information request issued day 12, response due; decision period waiting.
Day 31notice
Notification and decision
The notice pack, the client updates, the decision — all on the record.
Northing generates the public notification pack in the practice's own documents: the notice, the press advertisement and the neighbour letters, with a QR code to a public page for the application. As each phase finishes the client gets an update with one click to accept. When the decision notice arrives, forward it the same way the confirmation came and the job completes itself, currency period included.
The record now shows: notification complete, decision notice received — approved.
Mon9am
Paid, and reviewed
Every job knows what it's worth. Monday walks the week.
The scope's phase fees become fee lines on the job; disbursements sit beside them; a draft invoice goes to Xero from the fee line itself, and the job shows value, invoiced and remaining at a glance. On Monday the weekly review takes the room through every job the way a practice meeting runs: what can't be missed this week, who you're waiting on, projects by phase, enquiries and scopes going quiet, and the blind spots the clock can't protect until a date is recorded.
The record now shows: $9,450 job value, $6,100 invoiced, $3,350 to invoice — and nothing overdue.
What's in the box
Everything above, plus the parts of running a practice that don't fit on a timeline.
Every Queensland councilAll 77 local governments from day one, with state overlay checks for any lot. Council schemes, overlays and fee schedules are added per council and monitored weekly; the council's page in Northing shows what's automatic there.
AI grounded in the schemeDrafts and assessments cite the planning scheme's own zones, codes and tables — retrieved, not remembered. If the scheme doesn't state a benchmark, Northing won't invent one. A planner reviews everything before it goes out.
Dashboards for anyone, or any mix of peopleEach person's jobs, follow-ups and reminders; the office admin's "to prepare" lists; a principal's view of the whole book. Leave a note for a colleague and it lands on their dashboard.
Correspondence that files itselfClient and council emails are matched to the job, attachments filed as documents, pictures pasted into an email kept too. Anything uncertain waits in a filing queue instead of being lost.
Documents in your templatesPlanning profiles, scope-of-work letters, planning reports, public notification packs and client updates come out in the practice's own letterhead and wording, as PDF or Word.
Phases, tasks and sub-tasksTemplated for development applications and simpler jobs; milestones close phases; consultants carry the date they agreed to and get chased when it slips.
Financials that follow the workFee lines from the scope, disbursements with GST handled correctly, Xero draft invoices, and value / invoiced / remaining on every job.
A record of who did whatEvery manual change is attributed to the person who made it; an activity log and a comms log on every job; access levels for admins, members and read-only viewers.
Enquiries from LandbriefProperty owners who buy a Landbrief site report can be handed to a local planner — those leads arrive in Northing as enquiries, already carrying the report.
Hosted in Australia, watched around the clockSydney hosting, nightly backups, uptime and data-source monitoring, and a weekly sweep of every council service Northing relies on.
Priced per practice, not per seat.
Every practice starts with 30 days free. No card is needed to begin, and prices exclude GST.
$150per monthStandard — 1 to 4 people. The whole workflow above.
$200per monthPractice — 5 people for $200, then $50 per extra person.
Practice-management software for Queensland town planning firms. It tracks development applications from the first enquiry to the decision notice and the invoice: the statutory clock, planning profiles, scope-of-work letters, council correspondence, public notification, phases, fees and a weekly review, in one workspace.
How does Northing calculate statutory timeframes?
In business days under the Queensland Planning Act 2016 and the Development Assessment Rules. The confirmation notice sets the lodgement date and application number; an information request and its response are recorded against the clock; referral responses and public notification periods are tracked; and an extension agreed with council is kept alongside the statutory end date.
Which councils does Northing cover?
All 77 Queensland local governments are in from day one, with Queensland Government state overlay checks for any lot. Council planning-scheme overlays, zones, scheme text and application fee schedules are added per council and checked weekly for changes. The council's own page in Northing shows exactly what is automatic there.
Does Northing give planning advice?
No. Northing is a tool for qualified planners. AI-assisted drafts and overlay readings are starting points that a planner reviews and edits; the practice remains responsible for what it issues to clients and councils.
Where is the data hosted?
Northing and its database run in Sydney, Australia, with nightly backups kept in Australia. Each practice's records are separated from every other practice's. See the privacy policy.
What does Northing cost?
Standard is $150 per practice per month for 1 to 4 users. Practice starts at $200 per month for 5 users, then $50 per extra user, so 8 users is $350. Prices exclude GST. Every practice starts with a free 30-day trial and no card is needed to begin.
Can we move across from Monday.com, a spreadsheet or another tracker?
Yes. Practices usually run Northing alongside the old system for a couple of weeks while their live jobs are entered, then switch. The weekly review's blind-spot list shows which jobs still need their dates recorded. Talk to us about your current setup.
Built with a working practice.
Northing is built hand-in-hand with a Queensland planning consultancy whose whole development-application book runs on it — every job, every statutory date, every council email, every Monday meeting. Their feedback becomes the next release, usually within days.
"The statutory clock doesn't care about your spreadsheet. Northing counts the days so the planner doesn't have to, and the rest of the practice can see where every job sits."