Tx-Rails — Australian Community Housing Provider (CHP) Pricing Sheet
The auditable underlay for Australian Social Housing. Cryptographic continuous audit + procurement evidence + supplier-attestation, sitting underneath your existing Housing Management System, asset-management database, and tenant portal. We don’t replace any of them — we bind to them via a published integration mode and produce tamper-evident, regulator-verifiable evidence of everything they record. Designed for the AU CHP sector’s portfolio profile — most providers run 1,000–15,000 properties, not 30,000+ like UK HAs — with a tier-based platform price that doesn’t penalise smaller registered providers. See iiot-housing.md for the full underlay positioning.
What you get
Three integrated capabilities, one platform:
- Continuous cryptographic audit infrastructure
Every transaction, every state change, every safety-critical record committed to a Byzantine-fault-tolerant ledger and Merkle-anchored to the Hedera public DLT. Continuous evidence stream replaces the manual IT-controls audit work and the spreadsheet-based compliance reporting that consumes disproportionate staff time at small-to-mid CHPs.
Aligned with: NRSCH performance reporting framework, ACNC charity-reporting standards, state-level CHP registration requirements (NSW Tier 1/2/3, VIC Housing Registrar, QLD HPR), Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (NSW), Building Confidence Report (Shergold-Weir 2018) implementation across states, residential-tenancy-act minimum-standard regimes. - Supply-chain automation with smart-contract-equivalents
Milestone-triggered payments, automated purchase orders, real-time supplier compliance attestation, ESG/Scope-3 evidence by default. Unlimited data capacity (database-backed, not on-chain). Your existing procurement system (Vendorpanel, TechnologyOne, in-house build) feeds events into Tx-Rails via change-data-capture or atomic dual-write; the underlay produces verifiable settlement evidence without anyone changing their existing accounting workflow. - Regulator & auditor-grade evidence pipeline
Live data access for state CHP registrars; cryptographic chain-of-custody on building-safety records; substantive audit evidence accepted by your external auditor (typically a mid-tier or Big Four firm depending on CHP size) under ASA 315 (Revised) substantive-evidence standards.
What we sell — and what we don’t
What we don’t sell at any price: full transaction-front-end replacement. We don’t build your tenant portal, your staff dashboard, or your supplier-management platform. Your customer- and supplier-management screens stay put — Tx-Rails does not displace the systems your tenants, staff, and supplier-relationship managers already use. If you need a new browsing / catalogue / case-management screen, your engineering team builds it against our published SDK with our reference connectors.
What we do sell falls into two groups:
A. Operator utilities (bundled — Items 2 + 4 in the pricing table)
Three thin GUIs that the underlay needs to be usable by humans inside the CHP. They ship with the platform; customer-specific configuration is itemised separately.
- Evidence-retrieval portal — your compliance officer pulls cryptographic proofs of specific transactions in response to NRSCH, state-registrar, ACNC, ATO, or insurer questions. Generates evidence packs in formats acceptable to your external auditor and state CHP registrar.
- Compliance-officer dashboard — live view of NRSCH performance indicators, building-safety attestation status, tenant-engagement evidence (consultation records, complaints handling), maintenance-SLA compliance.
- Trust-management UI — operator-side controls for your enterprise PKI: certificate issuance, revocation, partner-org onboarding, kill-switch.
These ship with the platform, but customer-specific configuration of them — your brand skinning, state-registrar export templates, ACNC submission templates, NRSCH performance-indicator dashboards, SSO integration with your existing IdP — is a one-off engagement (Item 2 in the table below).
B. Supply-network attestation UI (optional — Item 5 in the pricing table)
A thin signature surface that lets external parties — subcontractors, materials suppliers, certifiers, joint-venture partners — interact with the BFT-mesh’s multi-party flows. This is explicitly in scope for us to develop, distinct from the “no procurement-portal replacement” line above. The scope is strictly the signature / attestation surface, not a procurement-management platform.
What it does:
– Suppliers authenticate via Elastos DID (or interim username/password)
– View pending attestations the underlay has emitted for them: milestone co-signatures, ESG/Scope-3 evidence requests, building-safety certifications they’re responsible for under DBP Act 2020 (NSW) or state equivalents, invoice acceptance
– Sign + submit, with the cryptographic proof landing immediately in the BFT mesh
– Each supplier sees only their own queue (multi-tenant via entnum)
What it explicitly is NOT:
– A supplier catalogue / sourcing / RFQ / contract-management replacement (those stay in your existing Vendorpanel / TechnologyOne / in-house build)
– A supplier CRM
– An accounting front-end for the supplier’s books
When you’d buy this: your existing supplier portal can’t carry M-of-N cryptographic co-signature, or you have no supplier portal at all — common for smaller CHPs (Tier 3, <3k properties) and CHPs with informal contractor rosters.
When you wouldn’t: large suppliers integrate directly via our SDK + reference connectors against their own systems, at no per-supplier cost from us.
Pricing — five line items, four budget homes (Item 5 optional)
| # | Item | Type | Indicative price (AUD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | One-off integration & onboarding — integration-mode selection (hash-only attestation / atomic dual-write / change-data-capture observer), CDC or dual-write hooks against your HMS + repairs + asset-management platforms, certificate-authority setup, UAT, launch | One-off CapEx — capitalisable over 3–5 years | A$100,000 – A$220,000 |
| 2 | One-off operator-UI configuration — evidence-retrieval portal skinned to your brand; regulator-export templates (state CHP registrar formats, ACNC AIS, NRSCH performance indicators, DBP Act 2020 evidence packs); compliance-officer dashboard customised; SSO integration with your IdP (Azure AD / Okta / Entra) | One-off CapEx — capitalisable over 3–5 years | A$50,000 – A$110,000 |
| 3 | Annual support & maintenance (security patches, OS/library upgrades, AU-hours help desk, 99.5% uptime SLA, integration-mode adjustments as your HMS/asset-mgmt landscape evolves, operator-UI updates for new regulator templates as they’re published) | OpEx — renewable annually | A$75,000 / year |
| 4 | Tx-Rails platform access — BFT infrastructure, audit attestation, Hedera anchoring, dual-DC redundancy (Sydney + Melbourne by default), regulator pipeline. Includes the three operator utilities. Tiered by portfolio size — see range governance below. | OpEx — annual platform subscription, portfolio-tiered | A$50,000 – A$200,000 / year |
| 5 | Supply-network attestation UI (optional) — thin signature surface for external parties: subcontractors, materials suppliers, JV partners. Supplier DID auth, per-tenant queue of pending attestations, M-of-N co-signature flows. NOT a procurement-portal replacement; see scope detail above. | One-off CapEx — capitalisable over 3–5 years | A$70,000 – A$180,000 |
| Year 1 total (mid-tier example: Tier-2 5k-property CHP, Items 1+2 mid-points, Item 5 excluded) | A$445,000 | ||
| Year 1 total with Item 5 mid-point | A$570,000 | ||
| Year 2+ ongoing (Tier-2 example) | A$205,000 / year |
Item 1 — what governs the range:
– A$100k floor — hash-only attestation (Mode A): your HMS commits as normal; we receive only content hashes. Lowest integration cost; retroactive verifiability.
– A$220k ceiling — atomic dual-write (Mode B): your HMS and Tx-Rails commit in the same transaction. Highest integrity guarantee; suits new builds or major HMS refreshes.
– Most CHPs land mid-range with change-data-capture observation (Mode C) at ~A$140–180k — zero application code change, but more wiring against your DB replication log.
Item 2 — what governs the range:
– A$50k floor — standard configuration: library of pre-built regulator templates (NRSCH performance indicators, state registrar formats), light brand skinning, off-the-shelf SSO connectors.
– A$110k ceiling — bespoke regulator workflows (state-specific CHP reporting templates), custom compliance dashboards, custom report layouts, deeper IdP integration with custom claim mapping.
– Item 2 is optional: CHPs comfortable with default skin + standard exports can skip and adopt later — drops Year 1 to ~A$370k (Tier-2 example) without it.
Item 4 — portfolio-tier pricing (the AU-specific innovation):
| Tier | Portfolio size (registered + managed dwellings) | Annual platform fee (Item 4) |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 4 | < 1,000 properties | A$50,000 |
| Tier 3 | 1,000 – 3,000 properties | A$80,000 |
| Tier 2 | 3,000 – 8,000 properties | A$130,000 |
| Tier 1 | 8,000 – 15,000+ properties | A$200,000 |
The tier-based model exists because the AU CHP sector’s portfolio range (1k–15k typical) is narrower than the UK HA sector’s (often 30k–100k+). Pure per-property pricing produces a £5/home equivalent that’s too low for the small-CHP floor (a 1.5k-property CHP at A$8/property = A$12k — uneconomic for us to operate) and too low for differentiation at the large end. Tiers give CHPs a predictable annual line item and us a viable per-customer revenue floor.
Item 5 — what governs the range:
– A$70k floor — single-flow supplier-attestation kiosk (e.g. just safety-cert co-sign under DBP Act 2020), single tenant role, default branding, username/password auth.
– A$180k ceiling — full multi-flow attestation hub: milestone-payment co-sign + ESG/Scope-3 evidence + safety-cert + invoice acceptance, multiple supplier role tiers, Elastos DID auth, deep brand alignment, per-flow custom workflows.
– Item 5 is optional and skippable: CHPs whose existing supplier portal (Vendorpanel, TechnologyOne, custom-built) can carry M-of-N co-signature via SDK integration don’t need this.
Payback and ROI
For a typical Tier-2 CHP (5,000 properties). The sector-median operating cost per property in AU community housing is roughly A$3,500–4,500/year — lower than UK HAs (£5,136 ≈ A$9,750) but a comparable share of CHP revenue. A 5k-property CHP’s annual operating spend is on the order of A$17.5M–22.5M, with around A$5–10M directly procurement-driven (repairs, maintenance contracts, materials).
| Annual benefit | Conservative | Realistic |
|---|---|---|
| Audit IT-controls displacement (ASA 315 Revised + external-auditor IT-control work reduction) | A$40,000 | A$120,000 |
| Procurement reconciliation & dispute overhead reduction | A$80,000 | A$250,000 |
| Reduced leakage to overcharging, duplicate billing, fraud (industry estimates 1–5% of construction/repair spend; AU CHP procurement is smaller per property than UK, scaled accordingly) | A$100,000 | A$500,000 |
| Regulatory compliance evidence (NRSCH performance reporting, state registrar submissions, DBP Act 2020 building-safety attestation) | A$50,000 | A$200,000 |
| Operational coordination savings (maintenance-contractor verification, asset-condition assessment chain-of-custody) | A$50,000 | A$200,000 |
| Total annual value delivered | A$320,000 | A$1,270,000 |
| Tx-Rails Year 2+ cost (Tier-2 example) | A$205,000 | A$205,000 |
| Net annual return | A$115,000 | A$1,065,000 |
| ROI multiple | 1.6× | 6.2× |
Year 1 payback period: ~14 months at conservative end; under 7 months at realistic. Lower absolute ROI multiples than the UK sheet reflect smaller CHP procurement budgets and lower per-property maintenance spend — but the floor remains positive even at conservative assumptions.
Pilot terms — non-binding, parallel-run, zero operational risk
- 3 months running Tx-Rails alongside your existing systems. No production switchover.
- Mode A (hash-only) integration with your housing management system for the pilot. No changes to your data or workflows; no new screens for your staff. We receive content hashes only and produce verifiable evidence rows; you can compare against your HMS’s own records at any time.
- Walk-away clause: if at month 3 the metrics don’t meet agreed targets, the engagement ends. No further fees, no exit penalties.
- Audit acceptance pre-validation: before signing, we’ll meet with your external auditor to confirm the attestation artifacts meet their ASA 315 Revised evidence standards. State-CHP-registrar pre-validation also available where the registrar offers a sandbox review channel.
- Data ownership: all data committed to Tx-Rails is yours. Cryptographic exports are open-format and re-readable indefinitely — even if Tx-Rails the company ceases to exist.
Why now (AU context)
- NRSCH performance reporting is tightening; state CHP registrars (especially NSW Tier 1) are increasing evidence-of-process demands.
- Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (NSW) plus equivalents being rolled out across other states — registered building practitioners must keep auditable records, and the principal contractor’s chain of custody on safety-critical components is testable on demand.
- Building Confidence Report (Shergold-Weir 2018) implementation — building cladding registration, fire-engineering signoffs, and combustible-material attestation are real obligations with criminal exposure for misrepresentation.
- ACNC scrutiny of CHP charities increased substantially post-2020; audited financial statements + governance evidence are non-negotiable.
- State Auditor-General offices increasingly perform performance audits on community-housing programs (NSW Auditor-General’s 2023 report on Tier-1 CHP performance, VIC AGO equivalent work).
- Audit fees rising as the Big Four restructure their public-sector and not-for-profit practices post-CBA / Westpac / casino-inquiry experiences.
You face an unavoidable evidentiary-burden uplift. The question is whether you meet it with more manual consultant work or with continuous cryptographic infrastructure.
Next steps
- 30-minute discovery call with your CEO + CFO + Head of Compliance to confirm scope fit.
- Letter of Intent — non-binding, signals pilot interest; required for our investor commitment, no obligation to you.
- Pilot kick-off within 8 weeks of LOI.
Contact: John Olsen · john@itotchaincloud.com.au · +61 490 114 879
Reference data sources: AIHW Housing Assistance in Australia annual reports; NRSCH Performance Reports; CHIA Australia sector overviews; AHURI research bulletins on Community Housing scale economics; State CHP registrar reports (NSW Department of Communities & Justice Housing, VIC Housing Registrar); ACNC Annual Information Statements aggregate data; ABS Building Activity (Cat. 8752.0); Auditor-General performance-audit reports (NSW, VIC, QLD) on social housing. ASA 315 (Revised) substantive-evidence standards. Full citations available on request.
Tx-Rails — Built by IT/OT Chain & Cloud Australia (ITOTCCA). Sydney · London.