Admin for Tradies
Tradie Systems

Find the bottleneck. Build it out.

Most admin pain isn't a people problem — it's a process that was never designed. We find where the time is actually going, then build the system that removes it. Sometimes that's a change in Xero. Sometimes it's a purpose-built tool that didn't exist before.

At a glance

Who it's for
Businesses where one admin job keeps eating days
How it's priced
Scoped per job — a fixed price for a defined piece of work
Typical jobs
Back costing, purchase orders, job reporting, statement checking
Behind it
A Diploma in Lean Systems and 14 years in trade books
The detail

How a systems job runs

Same discipline every time: understand the work, remove what shouldn't be there, then automate what's left.

Step one — find where the time goes

We walk the process with whoever actually does it. Not how it's supposed to work — how it works on a Thursday when three jobs are running late. That's where the double handling, the re-typing and the "I just check it manually" steps show up.

Nine times out of ten the bottleneck isn't where the owner thinks it is.

Step two — take out the steps that shouldn't exist

Before automating anything, we delete. Reports nobody reads, approvals that don't change a decision, information entered twice because two systems don't talk. Automating a bad process just makes the mess arrive faster.

This step is free money and it's usually where the biggest hours come back.

Step three — build what's left

Then, and only then, we build. That might be a properly designed Xero setup, a job workflow in NextMinute or WorkflowMax, a spreadsheet that actually holds up, or a purpose-built tool where nothing off the shelf fits.

We use AI to build these, which is why bespoke tooling is now affordable for a small trade business instead of a $40,000 development project. But the design comes from bookkeeping judgement — knowing what has to be checked, and what happens at year end if it isn't. That's the part AI can't supply.

Jobs we're regularly asked for
  • Back costing — joining job costs, timesheets and Xero so you can see what a job made
  • Purchase order management — knowing what's been committed before the invoice turns up
  • Supplier statement checking — every statement line matched against what's in Xero
  • Job reporting for owners who want one page, not a dashboard
  • Getting the office off paper and out of the shoebox without a six-month project
  • Handover documentation, so the business isn't carrying one person's memory
How pricing works

Scoped per job. We look at the problem, tell you what we'd do, what it will cost and what you'll have at the end. Fixed price on a defined piece of work.

Small jobs are often a few hours. A build is bigger, and we'll split it into stages so you can stop after the first one if you've got what you needed.

Who owns it afterwards

You do. Anything we build for your business is yours, documented, and runs without us. We're not interested in making you dependent — a system you can't operate isn't a system, it's a liability.

Proof

We build the tools we use ourselves

Not theory. The checking tools running over our own clients' books every month were built here, and they're the reason one bookkeeper can carry the load of several.

A checker for the books

Runs a full checklist over a period before a GST return or month end is signed off — coding, GST treatment, bank reconciliation, payroll liabilities, assets. Catches what a quick eyeball misses.

A statement checker

Matches every line of a supplier statement against what's in the books, so missing invoices and double-ups are found in minutes instead of an afternoon.

Trackers for the work itself

Client, job and wage tracking built to how bookkeeping actually runs — so nothing sits waiting on somebody remembering it.

Some of these have grown into products in their own right, developed under telic.nz.

The rest of the family

Often taken alongside

Got one job that keeps eating days?

Tell us what it is. If it can be systemised we'll tell you how — and if it can't, we'll tell you that too.

Book a free chat