Job Management Software
for NZ Civil & Construction Teams

What is job management software?

Job management software tracks every job in your business from the first quote to the final invoice, in one place. For a New Zealand civil or trades crew that means: a unique number for every job, a dispatch board showing who's on what today, timesheets logged against the job (and the digger), hazards and SSSPs attached to the site, supplier invoices matched to the job, and a live running total of what the job has cost versus what you quoted.

The alternative — a whiteboard, three spreadsheets, a group chat and a shoebox of PlaceMakers slips — works right up until it doesn't. Jobs get double-handled, hours get lost between the ute and the office, invoices go out late (or never), and nobody knows which jobs actually made money until the accountant tells you six months later.

Good job management software fixes the same three problems for every contractor: nothing falls through the cracks, the office stops re-typing what the field already wrote down, and you can see each job's margin while you can still do something about it.

Tracking the work

Hours, plant and site records belong with the job.

Commercial control

Review what went into the work.

Review labour, plant, materials and supplier costs against the job. Check the underlying records and rates before relying on the totals for pricing or billing. Job costing connects those records to the commercial view.

Build the scope in civil estimating, measure quantities with construction takeoffs, then manage quotes, variations, customer invoices and progress claims as the work develops.

Xero and accounting

Connect a Xero organisation through OAuth. Fieldlink supports quote and invoice sales sync, imports Xero contacts and tracking categories, and can match or create a contact when pushing an invoice. With Xero Payroll NZ access and employee, earnings-rate and calendar mappings configured, approved hours can be sent to Xero. Leave balances can be refreshed from Xero.

Review sync results and resolve any errors in the office. See the Xero timesheet integration workflow for the accounting hand-off.

Choosing job management software

What should a NZ contractor look for?

• A job record that connects planning, site entries and costs, with access suited to each role.
• Mobile screens your crew can use, and a clear explanation of which actions work offline.
• Timesheet approval and an accounting hand-off that fit your existing payroll setup.
• Plant, safety and commercial workflows that match the work you actually do.
• Clear NZD pricing, crew limits, support arrangements and a way to export your records.

Compare the feature overview, current plans and crew limits and setup FAQs against those requirements.

Moving from spreadsheets

Start with one active job. Check its people, plant, rates and opening information, assign the next day's work and ask the crew to record it. Have the office review the entries against your existing records before moving more jobs across. Agree who owns approvals and how historic records will be retained.

Who Fieldlink is built for

New Zealand civil and construction teams: earthworks, drainage, roading and contractors coordinating crews and plant across jobs. Explore Fieldlink for civil construction for the wider industry workflow.

How a job runs through Fieldlink, start to finish

1. 1. Quote it

   Build the quote in Fieldlink (or import it), send it to the client from the app, and get an online acceptance. Accepted quote converts to a job in one click — quoted value carried across so margin tracking starts on day one.

2. 2. Number it

   The job gets its number — J0042 — and that number follows everything: timesheets, supplier slips, plant hours, photos, QA records. When a PlaceMakers invoice shows up with J0042 scrawled on it, the extracted reference helps match it to the job; the office reviews the supplier details.

3. 3. Dispatch it

   Drag crew onto the job on the dispatch board, assign the ute and the digger, attach the SSSP. Workers open their phone in the morning and see where they're going, what they're doing, and what the hazards are.

4. 4. Work it

   The crew logs hours against the job and the machines, completes pre-starts, files hazards, snaps progress photos. Online entries reach the office; supported offline entries queue until reconnection — no Friday-afternoon paper chase.

5. 5. Watch the money

   The job's cost breakdown builds itself: labour at real hourly rates, plant at internal charge-out rates, materials, and confirmed supplier invoices. Next to it, the live margin percentage against your quoted value.

6. 6. Bill it

   Import approved hours onto a customer invoice as line items (with double-billing protection), add variations the client already approved online, push to Xero, and send. Progress claims for bigger contracts work the same way.

Fieldlink vs Simpro vs Tradify vs spreadsheets

Simpro is the default “big” option in NZ for civil and trades job management software — but it's an Australian product priced in AUD that bills per user, with a steep onboarding fee and a UX clearly designed for the bookkeeper, not the digger op on the phone. A 10-person Kiwi crew on Simpro pays roughly NZ$800–$1,200/month in subscription fees alone (indicative, as at mid-2026). The same crew on Fieldlink's Crew plan pays NZ$39.99/month flat — a saving of over NZ$9,000 a year going straight to your bottom line.

Tradify is built for one-person tradies — an electrician, a plumber. It doesn't handle multiple field workers dispatching to multiple jobs in one day, plant run-hours, or SSSPs. Fieldlink does — that's our whole point.

Spreadsheets are free until you count the office hours. Re-typing paper timesheets, chasing missing dockets, reconciling supplier invoices against jobs by memory — for most crews that's 5–10 office hours a week. At any realistic hourly rate, the spreadsheet is the most expensive job management system you can run.