Using VBA360 for compliance certificates

No special software is needed but you will need access to the internet using a modern web browser e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari etc.

You can access VBA360 at the login portal.

If you already have an existing account, click Sign In.

If this is your first time using VBA360, click Register to create an account.

You will need an email address and your User ID (your BPC Plumbing Licence number), to create your VBA360 account.

If you have forgotten your VBA360 password, click the Sign in button.

Then, on the Sign in page, click Reset your password. Follow the prompts, and a new password will be emailed to you.

Check your junk mail if you haven't received an email within 10 minutes.

The email address you give us will be used to send you receipts when you buy compliance certificates.

We will also use it to send you a new password if you need one, and to send you useful information such as updates about VBA360.

You can use VBA360 on a mobile phone if it can access the internet using a web browser.

Having a device with a larger screen will be easier to navigate the portal.

When using VBA360 on an Apple device, the BPC recommends using the Firefox browser. 

After logging in to your VBA360 account, click New compliance certificate. You will be taken to complete an online purchase form.

You can then buy compliance certificates, either individually or in bulk. You can also choose to store your credit card details in VBA360, allowing you to quickly complete all future purchases.

There is a limit to how many compliance certificates can be bought per calendar month. This monthly purchase cap is different for each practitioner, and reflects their purchase history and current needs.

You can ask the BPC to change your monthly cap at any time through the compliance certificate Request Form in VBA360. You will be given a link to that form if you reach your cap.

Purchase single certificate

If you want to buy only one compliance certificate, click Purchase single certificate.

• Enter the property address and your payment details.
• Press Pay.

Purchase multiple certificates

If you want to buy several compliance certificates at the same time, click Purchase multiple certificates.

You can only buy certificates in groups of 25. This means that if you have a monthly purchase cap of less than 25, VBA360 will tell you that you have exceeded that cap.

You'll need to fill out the compliance certificate Request Form if you would like to increase the cap to allow you to buy in bulk.

• If your monthly cap is at least 25, use the drop-down menu to select the number of compliance certificates you want to buy.
• Enter your payment details.
• Press Pay.

If you don't have a Mastercard or VISA debit or credit card, you can get a prepaid card at Australia Post or through your bank. You can top up this card whenever you need to.

You can choose to store your card details in VBA360, allowing you to quickly complete all future purchases.

Yes, a secure banking platform supports all purchases made through VBA360.

Allocating each compliance certificate to an address helps licensed plumbers to better manage their compliance obligations. Combining the purchase of the compliance certificate with allocation of the certificate to a specific address helps to ensure that compliance certificates are being purchased as they are needed.

VBA360 will ask you to enter a property address when you buy a single compliance certificate. If you purchase multiple compliance certificates at one time, you will not need to add a property address immediately.

Yes, when you buy more compliance certificates, VBA360 will remind you that you already have compliance certificates that you can use.

This reminder will not prevent you from buying more, unless you have already reached your monthly purchase cap.

Most licensed plumbing practitioners do not need to amend site addresses on compliance certificates that have been allocated to a site address, or lodged and given to the consumer.

There may be a need to rectify genuine errors, or update a site address based on new information.

You can change a site address on a compliance certificate up to 3 times, within 12 months of the allocated or lodged date.

If there is a need to change the site address of compliance certificates that:

• have already been changed three times
  and/or
• were allocated or lodged more than 12 months ago

then VBA360 will give you a link to the compliance certificate Request Form when you attempt to make the change. You can ask the BPC to help you by filling out that form.

After logging in to your VBA360 account, select the compliance certificate you would like to book an inspection for.

Click on the Booking link and enter:

• the Property Identification Code (PIC) Consent to Connect number
• the date of the inspection you require
• the length of drain
• the time of the inspection.

To complete the drain booking, consent to the declaration and click Submit.

After logging in to your VBA360 account, search for the compliance certificate you would like to lodge, and select Continue.

When you are logged into VBA360, you can use the Certificate Status drop-down menu to search within your compliance certificates.

After you purchase a certificate individually, it will have a Certificate Status of Allocated. This is because when you buy only one certificate at a time, VBA360 will require you to allocate a property address at the point of purchase.

If you buy certificates in bulk, there is no requirement in VBA360 to allocate an address until you choose to do so. Until you have allocated a site address to a certificate, these certificates will have a Certificate Status of Purchased. After you have added an address to a certificate, the Certificate Status will change to Allocated. Compliance certificates purchased after 13 August 2025 will expire 1 year after they are purchased, if they are not allocated during that time.

In the Certificate Status drop-down menu, select the status of the Compliance certificate you want to find, and select Search. You can further narrow the search if you need to. See our overview of the compliance certificates guide for how to do this.

This helps you to manage your certificates, and gives you the maximum amount of time to use each certificate.

This is important because compliance certificates issued after 13 August 2025 will expire 1 year after they are purchased, if they are not allocated during that time.

From the VBA360 home page, search for all compliance certificates with a Certificate Status of Purchased.

By default, VBA360 sorts your compliance certificates by date of purchase, with the newest purchase first.

VBA360 is not able to change the order that it shows compliance certificates in its search results table.

To find your oldest compliance certificate, scroll to the bottom of your search results and click Last. Your oldest purchase is the last in the list.

A search for Purchased compliance certificates will show you only compliance certificates that you have not allocated to an address. If you are looking for compliance certificates that have already been allocated an address, you can search for all compliance certificates with a Certificate Status of Allocated.

Yes, compliance certificates with a status of Purchased can be transferred in limited circumstances, if the BPC approves your request.

To ask us to make a transfer for you, select the Transfer Certificate button at the top of the VBA360 homepage. This button will only be active if you have Purchased compliance certificates available to transfer.

When you try to transfer a compliance certificate, you will be given a link to the compliance certificate Request Form, where you can apply to transfer certificates.

Yes, but only if you have not carried out any work at the site address.

You can change the addresses on compliance certificates up to 3  times within 12 months of the allocated date. This allows you to remove an address from a certificate where a plumbing job did not go ahead, and use that certificate for a different job.

For some certificates, VBA360 may prevent you from changing the address. If this happens, VBA360 will display a link to the Help request form where you can ask the BPC to reset the address for you.

No. If you used a compliance certificate to record information about work that you did, you should leave the certificate as a record of that work.

This is because a licensed plumber must lodge a compliance certificate with the BPC and give it to the person who contracted the plumber for the work if:

• the work is complete
  or
• the work is incomplete, but the person who contracted the licensed plumber for the work asked for a certificate for the part of the work that was carried out.

You can read about this in sections 221ZH(2), (2A) and (2B) of the Building Act (1993).

If you have a compliance certificate that contains details about partially complete work, but it has not been requested by the person who contracted your plumber for the work, you do not need to lodge the certificate unless they ask you for it.

If you carried out plumbing work at the job site, you must not delete details about the work from the certificate and then reuse it.

The certificate should be closed instead. Closing the certificate gives the person who contracted you for the work the option to request the certificate at a later date.

The BPC will automatically close the certificate for you if you have made no changes to a certificate allocated to a site address for several years.

You can ask us to reopen a certificate if you need to (for example, if you later complete the work and need to lodge the certificate).

The BPC closes older certificates with an Allocated status, which are certificates that have had a job site address added to them but have not been lodged in VBA360. This means that they were not issued to the person who engaged you for the plumbing work.

You can ask us to reopen a certificate for you.

To do so, email compliance.certificates@bpc.vic.gov.au with your name, licence number, phone number, the number of the certificate that you would like reopened, and the reason for your request.

The BPC will soon update its Help Request form to allow you to ask us to reopen a certificate without emailing us.

No. Closing compliance certificates in VBA360 can only be performed by the BPC. Licensed plumbers cannot close certificates in VBA360.

If you have a compliance certificate you want closed (e.g. because you carried out some work at the address, but you will not be completing the work, and you have not been asked for a certificate to cover the work that you did), you should take no action, and leave the certificate as a record of the incomplete work that you did. These certificates will be closed by the BPC if you don’t edit them after several years.

Compliance certificates that are unused (and don’t have a site address on them) have a Purchased status and will not be closed. These will stay in your VBA360 account until you are ready to use them, or (if they have an expiry date) until they expire.

If you bought a compliance certificate individually in VBA360 and you were required to add an address, it will have an Allocated status. These certificates will be closed if you don’t use them after several years.

Licensed plumbers cannot reopen certificates in VBA360. Reopening compliance certificates can only be performed by the BPC.

If you have a compliance certificate you want reopened (e.g. because you have now completed the work and need to lodge the certificate), you can ask us to reopen it for you.

The BPC will soon update its Help Request form to allow you to ask us to reopen a certificate without emailing us.

The BCP closes compliance certificates that have been allocated to a site address, have not been lodged in VBA360, and have not been modified in several years.

If you have made recent changes to an Allocated compliance certificate, even if you purchased it many years ago, it will not be closed.

If you have made recent changes to an Allocated compliance certificate, even if you purchased it many years ago, it will not be closed.

To keep an older certificate open, make sure you regularly update it to reflect the plumbing work you have done.

No. You can ask the BPC to reopen a closed compliance certificate at any time.

When you search for a compliance certificate in VBA360, the search result will show you:

• the certificate number
• the PIN
• the status of the certificate (e.g. Allocated, Purchased, etc)
• the date the certificate was purchased
• an expiry date of the certificate (if there is one)
• the date the certificate was lodged (if it has been lodged)
• the site address
• whether any gas or drain bookings were made.

If you need to know any other details that you have typed into a compliance certificate that has been closed, you can email compliance.certificates@bpc.vic.gov.au with the certificate number and your request.

Once you have lodged a compliance certificate in VBA360, you must give it to the consumer within 5 days by either:

• downloading and/or printing it from VBA360, and handing, posting or emailing it
  or

• giving the consumer the unique 8 digit compliance certificate number and its 4 digit PIN. This is displayed on the top right-hand side of each compliance certificate.

  The consumer can then download their compliance certificate at the look up a compliance certificate page.

Yes. Non-payment by the customer does not remove the need for a licensed plumber to self-certify that their work is compliant with codes, standards and regulations.

Plumbing compliance certificates provide valuable information about plumbing work in Victoria, and are an integral part of the regulatory regime that ensures a high standard of plumbing work is maintained across the state.

The introduction of expiry dates for compliance certificates support licensed plumbers by encouraging the purchase of certificates on an as-needs basis. Without an expiry date, licensed plumbers may otherwise never use or lodge the certificates they previously purchased.

Part 12A of the Building Act 1993 sets out the requirements for compliance certificates. As Victoria’s regulator for building and plumbing industries, the BPC has a legislative obligation to introduce an expiry date for compliance certificates purchased on or after 13 August 2025.

Compliance certificates will expire 1 year after the purchase date if no site address is allocated to the certificate. This means that only compliance certificates with a Certificate Status of Purchased will expire.

No. The BPC understands that that some plumbing works will take more than 1 year to complete. Once a compliance certificate is allocated to a site address, the expiry date of the certificate will disappear.

The BPC regularly monitors its data, including compliance certificate purchase and allocation dates. Compliance certificates that remain in an Allocated status for a significant time without lodgement may be investigated by the BCP to ensure that licenced lumbers are meeting their compliance obligations.

No. Once a compliance certificate is expired it can no longer be used. You will need to purchase a new certificate.

In general, it is the practitioner’s responsibility to monitor the purchase and use of compliance certificates within the 1 year expiry period.

However, a practitioner may request an extension to their certificate’s expiry date in limited circumstances (for example, where the practitioner has experienced significant illness or injury and cannot work for an extended period of time).

If a practitioner requests an extension to their certificate’s expiry date due to their general management of compliance certificates (e.g. not checking the due date, or forgetting to apply for a due date extension in time), then the BPC will decline the extension request.

The BPC will make a decision about extension requests and inform you of the outcome. The BPC may require evidence to support the request.

As no compliance certificate will expire until 14 August 2026, the BPC does not anticipate an expiry extension or refund request to be required in 2025. In the coming months, BPC will update its Practitioner request form to include extension requests. At that time, you will be able to make a request for an expiry extension or refund through the VBA360 portal, by clicking the Extension Form button at the top of the compliance certificate homepage.

In general, it is the practitioner’s responsibility to monitor the purchase, use, and expiry of their compliance certificates within the 1 year expiry period.

However, a practitioner may request an extension to their certificate’s expiry date, or may request a refund, in limited circumstances. For example, where the practitioner has experienced significant illness or injury and cannot work for an extended period of time.

As no compliance certificate will expire until 14 August 2026, the BPC does not anticipate an expiry extension or refund request to be required in 2025.

BPC will shortly update its Practitioner request form to include extension requests.

At that time, you will be able to make a request for an expiry extension or refund through the VBA360 portal, by clicking the Extension Form button at the top of the compliance certificate homepage.

Yes, you must apply for an extension (or refund) at least 2 weeks before the expiration date. The BPC will decline late requests for extensions (or refunds) unless special circumstances apply e.g. the practitioner was significantly unwell and unable to submit an extension request during the relevant 2 weeks.

Please check the quick reference guides in our resource hub to see if your questions are answered there.

If you still need assistance, you can email the BPC at customerservice@bpc.vic.gov.au, or call us on 1300 067 088.