Does the Aged Care Act require maintenance software?

No. The Aged Care Rules 2025 set outcomes, such as a clean, safe and comfortable environment and equipment that is safe and meets residents' needs. They do not prescribe a system. Software is one way to keep the records that show those outcomes are met, and to keep them current between audits.

What should aged care maintenance software record for each asset?

Where it is (home, floor and room), its make, model and serial number, who maintains it, the routine that applies to it and the rule that routine comes from, and every job raised against it with dates, names and results. Hoists, slings, powered beds, thermostatic mixing valves, fire measures and lifts are the assets an assessor is most likely to ask about.

Can software prove we meet Standard 4?

No. The provider meets Standard 4, and the assessor weighs the records against what they see and hear in the home. Good software makes the records complete, timely and easy to find. It does not make a judgement for you, and it does not replace the signed AS 1851 logbook record left on site.

Should our retirement villages sit in the same system as our care homes?

They can, as long as the system keeps them apart. Each residential care home is a service environment under Standard 4. The village buildings answer to the NSW retirement villages regime instead, with its own asset register, annual capital maintenance report and annual safety inspection. A good system lets you report on each regime without mixing the two.

How long should the software keep our maintenance history?

Standard 4 sets no period. In NSW, AS 1851 records are kept for at least 7 years, incident records under the Aged Care Rules for 7 years, and records for registered plant such as lifts for as long as the plant is used. The simplest policy is to keep the full history against each asset for as long as you hold it, and to make sure you can export it if you ever change systems.

What is the one test to run in a demo?

Ask the vendor to raise a fault the way a carer would, on a phone, in plain words. Then follow it to a closed job and open the record an assessor would read. If that takes more than a few minutes, or needs the vendor's help, it will not hold up on a busy shift.

Aged care maintenance software: what to look for

An assessor walks the home, hears from residents and staff, and reads the records. The question to ask of any maintenance system is whether its records will agree with what the assessor sees and hears. This guide turns that question into tests you can run in a demo, before you sign anything.

By Arbab Shah, asset and facilities manager. A practitioner's guide, not legal advice. It draws on the Aged Care Act 2024, the Aged Care Rules 2025 and Department of Health guidance as at October 2026, set out in more detail in our Standard 4 maintenance evidence guide. Check the current law before you rely on specifics.

What the records have to show

The strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards have been in effect since 1 November 2025. Their outcome statements are law, in section 15-25 of the Aged Care Rules 2025. For a property team, two of them carry most of the weight. In residential care, residents must be able to access care in a clean, safe and comfortable environment (Outcome 4.1b). And equipment used in care must be safe and meet residents' needs (Outcomes 4.1a and 4.1b).

The Department's actions add the detail a maintenance team recognises: the environment is routinely cleaned and well maintained, and equipment is safe, clean and well maintained. None of that names a system. It names a result, and the records are how a home shows the result is real.

So the job of software in an aged care home is narrow and practical. It should make the right record easy to create at the moment the work happens, and easy to find when someone asks for it.

Eight tests to run in a demo

1. A register by home, floor and room

Ask to see a single home's register. Every asset that serves residents should sit at a location you would recognise on a walk: beds and mattresses, hoists and slings, mobility aids and shower chairs, thermostatic mixing valves, fire measures, lifts, call points, air conditioning, and kitchen and laundry plant. Each should carry its make, model and serial number and who maintains it, the in house team or a named contractor. If the register is a flat list with no rooms, the assessor's question "where is this hoist's service history?" becomes a search.

2. A routine for each asset, tied to the rule behind it

A routine should say where its frequency comes from. For hoists and powered beds, that is the manufacturer's recommendations. For fire measures in NSW, it is AS 1851-2012, or the approved performance solution where there is one. For warm water systems and cooling towers, it is the NSW public health requirements. Ask the vendor to open one routine and show you the source. A system that just says "every 6 months" leaves you unable to defend the interval when it is questioned.

3. The defect loop, with times the system records

If a resident says the shower ran cold for a week, the record should show when it was reported, when it was made safe and when it was fixed. Ask whether those times are set by the system as each step happens, or typed in afterwards. Records made as the work happened are the ones that hold up. A defect found on a routine visit should open its own job that cannot quietly disappear, and the routine should not show as complete while a failed item is still open.

4. A way for care staff to report in plain words

The person who notices a fault in an aged care home is usually a carer, a cleaner or a resident's family member, not a tradesperson. Ask to raise a request on a phone the way a carer would, with a photo and a sentence. If the form asks for an asset code or a trade category first, faults will keep arriving by word of mouth and the record will start late.

5. Contractor work that lands on your record

Much of the work in a home is done by contractors: fire services, lifts, nurse call, air conditioning, pest control. Their reports should attach to the job and the asset in your system. Keep your own copy rather than relying on a contractor's portal, because the history has to outlast any contract. Ask the vendor to show a contractor closing a job and where that report ends up.

6. Records that are current every day

Registration generally runs for 3 years, and the renewal audit can fall anywhere in a window that opens once less than 18 months remain. The Commission can also attend between audits, and where the Commissioner certifies an immediate and severe risk to a resident, an authorised officer can enter a residential care home without notice. Evidence assembled for a date does not survive that. Ask the vendor how overdue routines and open defects show up each morning, and to whom.

7. Care homes and villages kept apart

Many NSW groups run residential care homes and retirement villages side by side. Standard 4 applies to the care homes. The village buildings answer to the NSW retirement villages regime, with its own asset register, annual capital maintenance report and annual safety inspection. Ask whether you can report on each regime separately, so a village report never carries care home assets and an assessor's pack never carries village plant.

8. A clear line to your incident system

Equipment failure is not, of itself, a reportable incident under section 16(1) of the Aged Care Act 2024. A failure linked to harm still belongs in your incident management system, and some, such as an electric shock or the failure of a registered lift, may need to be notified to SafeWork NSW immediately, with the site left undisturbed. Software should hold the maintenance side of that story and point to the incident record. It should not decide for you whether something is reportable. That is a judgement for your clinical and quality team.

What software cannot do

No system makes a home compliant. The provider meets the outcomes, and the assessor weighs the records against the home itself. Be wary of any product that shows a compliance score it cannot trace back to dated records, or that counts imported history as verified work. A blank is more honest than a green tick with nothing behind it.

Software also does not replace the paper that the law still asks for. In NSW, AS 1851 requires a printed and signed record left on site at the end of each routine service, and Building Commission NSW says an electronic register cannot yet replace the physical logbook. A digital record can sit alongside it and make it findable.

A short demo checklist

One home's register opens by floor and room, with make, model, serial number and maintainer on each asset.
Every routine shows the rule its frequency comes from.
A defect records reported, made safe and fixed times as each step happens.
A carer can raise a request on a phone, in plain words, with a photo.
Contractor reports attach to the job and the asset, and you can export them.
Overdue routines and open defects reach a named person every day.
Care home and village assets report separately.
The full history against each asset can be exported if you ever leave.