FSC Audit Criteria: How Teralo Supports WHS Accreditation

Builders seeking or holding accreditation under the WHS Accreditation Scheme are audited against the FSC Audit Criteria Guidelines, published by the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner (FSC). We rated every criterion in those guidelines against what Teralo does today. 73 of the 170 criteria can run fully in Teralo, 79 more are partly covered, and 18 stay in your own WHS system.

This article explains what the criteria ask for, how we rated them, and where Teralo does the most work. The FSC audit criteria map lists every criterion beside the Teralo tools that run and record it, and you can download the map as a PDF to share with your WHS team.

What the FSC Audit Criteria Cover

The FSC Audit Criteria Guidelines (version 1.5, April 2024) group the criteria three ways:

• WHS criteria (30): the management system foundations, such as legal requirements, risk assessment, emergency preparedness, health monitoring, incident investigation and system audits
• Focus point criteria (24): senior management commitment, safe design, whole of project consultation, subcontractor management, performance measurement and training
• Hazard criteria (116): 19 high-risk hazard categories, from working at heights and excavation to electrical work, mobile plant and diving

For every criterion, an auditor looks for two things: a documented process, and evidence from your projects that it is followed. The guidelines' glossary defines what it means for a system to ensure something:

System ensures means there is a prompt or requirement within the Principal Contractor’s system that ensures the required action or task is completed and recorded consistently across project sites.

That definition is the test we applied. A system that only stores a file about a task doesn't meet it. A system that prompts the task and keeps the record can.

What an FSC Audit Looks At

FSC says accreditation audits consider all WHS and focus point criteria and one or two hazard criteria, and maintenance audits generally consider two WHS criteria, two focus point criteria and one or two hazard criteria. That makes the 54 WHS and focus point criteria the ones every accreditation audit covers, whatever work you do.

Hazard criteria only apply to the high-risk work your projects involve. A builder who never dives or uses explosives doesn't need systems for those categories.

How We Rated Each Criterion

Each criterion sits at one of four coverage levels:

A criterion is only rated Built in or Set up in Teralo when every part of it can be run and recorded in Teralo. Ratings describe what Teralo supports as at September 2026, not whether a particular company meets a criterion.

Results by Group

Coverage is strongest in the hazard criteria, where permits to work, SWMS, inspections and the equipment register do most of the work. It is thinnest in the WHS criteria, which ask for company-level registers, reviews and health monitoring that sit outside a project system today. Every accreditation audit covers all of those, so they are where your own documented system does the most work.

Where Teralo Does the Most Work

These 4 criteria are built in from the start:

• One induction for every worker (FP4.4). Every worker, whoever employs them, registers for the same online project induction, and the induction register records who completed it and when.
• Confined space entry permits (H6.2). The default Confined Space Entry permit requires gas readings and a named standby person, and can't be completed until its finish checklist, including whether everyone is accounted for on exit, is answered.
• Electrical isolation and lockout (H12.2). Work can't start until the Electrical Isolation permit's pre-start checklist, covering lock and tag, live-dead-live testing, stored energy and earthing, is answered.
• Mobile plant maintenance (H16.10). Plant is serviced by date or operating hours, with service records, certificates and an upcoming or overdue status in the register.

Most of the 69 set-up criteria follow one pattern: configure a SWMS activity type, permit checklist, inspection template or workflow once for your company, and every project runs it the same way. For example:

• Inspection program (FP5.3). Inspection templates hold your workplace-specific checklists, recurring inspection plans set the interval for each location, and inspectors can raise corrective actions from failed items.
• SWMS review (FP4.3). Each SWMS activity type carries your reviewer checklist, and SWMS from other companies must pass review against its required items.
• Incident investigation (WH15.1). Every incident type is bound to an investigation and sign-off workflow, and each incident records whether and when the regulator and client were notified.

What Stays in Your Own System

Teralo doesn't replace your WHS management system. Your system still describes each process; Teralo is where many of them run and where the records are kept. Today, these stay in your own system:

• Risk registers and your risk matrix, at company and project level, including safety in design.
• A legal register, and reviews when legislation changes.
• Health monitoring, exposure measurement and critical incident support.
• A training matrix by role, verification of competency, and training records for staff who aren't inducted on site.
• WHS objectives and targets, notifiable incident classification, injury frequency rates, and sign-off of the WHS management plan.
• Emergency planning and reviews, visitor emergency briefings, toolbox talk records, minutes for workers without a login, and a regular company WHS report.

The map marks each gap on the row it affects and, where one is planned, names the Teralo addition that would close it, so you can see which parts of a criterion your own documents need to carry.

Explore the Full Map

The FSC audit criteria map sets out all 170 criteria with the Teralo tools behind each one, how they're used, what you provide, and where FSC says a piece of evidence won't satisfy a criterion on its own. Filter it by coverage level, or download the PDF to work through it with your WHS team.

Teralo is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner. Using Teralo does not by itself achieve or guarantee accreditation: FSC assesses your documented processes and their implementation at audit.