Hazardous Substances
Nearly every organisation holds hazardous substances. A workshop has solvents and LPG; an office has cleaning chemicals; a farm has fuel and agrichemicals. The law in every country we support expects you to know what you hold, hold a current safety data sheet for each, and manage the risks.
SteadyOn’s Substances register is where that lives.
What the register holds
Section titled “What the register holds”For each substance:
| Identity | Name, product name, supplier, UN number, CAS number |
| Hazard classifications | What kind of harm it can do — several usually apply at once |
| Physical state | Liquid, solid, gas, aerosol |
| Locations and quantities | Where it’s held, and how much at each place |
| Safety Data Sheet | The document, and when it was issued |
| Status | Held on site, or no longer held |
Plus the usual SteadyOn surfaces: attachments for photos and labels, notes, a full change log, and links to related hazards, incidents and actions.
Why quantity is recorded per location
Section titled “Why quantity is recorded per location”This is the part that surprises people, and it’s the most important thing to understand about the register.
Quantity belongs to a place, not to a substance. You don’t record “we hold 200 litres of petrol” — you record “80 litres in the workshop flammables store, 120 litres in the yard tank”.
That’s because the regulatory thresholds that trigger controls — signage, bunding, an emergency response plan, a compliance certificate — apply to how much is held in one place. Two hundred litres in a single shed is a different regulatory position from twenty litres in each of ten sheds, even though the totals match.
A register that stored one number per substance would give confident wrong answers. So each substance has a Locations tab, and you add a row per place it’s kept.
Totals are never converted between units
Section titled “Totals are never converted between units”A substance is measured in litres or kilograms, and SteadyOn never converts between them — that needs the substance’s density, which we don’t hold. If you keep something in both units, you’ll see both totals separately rather than one combined figure that would be wrong.
Hazard classifications
Section titled “Hazard classifications”Classifications are the codes that describe what harm a substance can do. They come from section 2 of the Safety Data Sheet.
Most substances carry several at once. Petrol, for example, is flammable, harmful if swallowed, a suspected carcinogen, and toxic to aquatic life — four separate classifications, each counted separately against its own threshold. Ticking only the first would under-report.
The vocabulary depends on your country:
- New Zealand — HSNO classification codes (3.1A, 6.1B, 8.2A, 9.1A…), which is what the Hazardous Substances Regulations express their thresholds in
- Everywhere else — GHS hazard classes (Flammable liquid, Acutely toxic, Skin corrosion…), the international vocabulary
Both are pre-loaded, so you pick from a list rather than typing codes. You can add, rename or retire entries in Settings → Organisation → Lookups.
See Classify a substance.
Safety Data Sheets
Section titled “Safety Data Sheets”A Safety Data Sheet (SDS) is the document your supplier provides setting out a substance’s hazards, safe handling, storage, and what to do in an emergency. Holding a current one for every substance is a requirement in every jurisdiction SteadyOn supports.
They go out of date. The usual expectation is that an SDS is reviewed within five years of issue. SteadyOn records the issue date, works out the review date, and warns you before it lapses — so a stale sheet doesn’t sit unnoticed for years.
See Manage Safety Data Sheets.
What the status colours mean
Section titled “What the status colours mean”Each substance carries a BRAG status, ranked by what needs attention first:
| Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 🔴 Red | No Safety Data Sheet held, or the one held is out of date |
| 🟠 Amber | Review date approaching, an SDS with no issue date recorded, or no classifications entered |
| 🟢 Green | Everything current, review date some way off |
| 🔵 Blue | No longer held — nothing outstanding |
Two of those are worth explaining.
A missing SDS outranks an expired one. You can’t safely handle, store, or respond to a spill of something whose data sheet you don’t hold at all. A stale sheet is a problem; no sheet is a bigger one.
An SDS with no issue date is amber, not green. If we don’t know when it was issued, we can’t tell you whether it’s current — and treating unknown as fine is exactly the silent failure this register exists to prevent.
What SteadyOn does not do
Section titled “What SteadyOn does not do”It is not a compliance certificate. SteadyOn records what you hold and flags what needs attention. Only a compliance certifier can issue a location compliance certificate.
It does not give regulatory advice. Where you need to know what a control involves or whether it applies to your situation, the authority is your regulator’s guidance — in New Zealand, WorkSafe’s hazardous substances guide — or a qualified adviser.
Quantity-threshold calculation is limited. See The controls report for exactly what is and isn’t calculated today.
Where to go next
Section titled “Where to go next”- Reading the substances register — what the Summary, Readiness and Controls tabs each answer
- Add a substance
- Classify a substance
- Manage Safety Data Sheets
- The controls report