Custom Operations Hub — NZ Equipment Hire Company
A custom operations platform replacing spreadsheets and manual Xero entry for an NZ equipment hire company — covering the full commercial workflow from first lead through to invoiced job.
The Challenge
A New Zealand equipment hire company managing 30–50 proposals per week across a sales team of four — all tracked in individual inboxes and spreadsheets with no shared pipeline, no version history, and no audit trail.
The problem we were asked to solve
Critical commercial processes — leads, quotes, purchase orders — were split across four people's inboxes and spreadsheets with no shared visibility. 30–50 proposals were built manually per week from a separate rate-card spreadsheet. Every accepted quote was re-typed into Xero as an invoice, and every supplier order as a Bill — hours of avoidable admin each week. There was no version history on proposals, no audit trail, and no single record linking a job to all the documents and transactions around it.
Our Approach
How we tackled it
Two weeks of discovery and process mapping — tracing every step of the current-state workflow, from first enquiry to final invoice, identifying every spreadsheet, email handoff, and manual Xero entry in the process.
Designed the core data model around a single job record — every quote version, PO, client, site, and document linking back to one record with a full audit trail. This structure was validated with the team before a line of code was written.
Built the quote builder first — the highest-volume daily pain point. Rate card integration, GST calculation, PDF export, and full variation history from day one of the feature being live.
Connected the Xero integration end-to-end — accepted quotes auto-generate draft invoices; supplier POs auto-push as Bills. Both flows were tested and signed off before any other feature was prioritised.
Ran a two-week parallel period with the sales team working across both the new platform and the existing spreadsheets — validating every workflow in real conditions before full cutover.
The Solution
What we built
A custom operations hub covering the full commercial workflow from first lead through to invoiced job. A shared visual lead pipeline, a quote builder that pulls from rate cards automatically (line items, GST, variation history, PDF export), automatic conversion of accepted quotes into job records and draft Xero invoices, and a supplier PO module that raises, emails, and auto-pushes to Xero as a Bill. Every record — client, site, quote, job, PO, document — connects to a central job record with a full audit trail.
Visual lead pipeline — kanban board, owner-assigned, searchable across all active leads
Quote builder with rate card integration, GST calculation, variation history, and PDF export
One-click conversion: accepted quote → Job record + draft Xero Invoice
Supplier PO management — raise, PDF, email to supplier, and auto-push to Xero as a Bill
Job lifecycle tracking: Quoted → Accepted → In Progress → Invoiced → Closed
Document attachments on every record — lift studies, site plans, signed POs
Role-based access: Admin, Sales, and Viewer roles with appropriate permissions
Full audit log — every create, update, and delete recorded with user and timestamp
Technology
Results
What changed
Full sales pipeline shared across the sales team from go-live — no leads living in anyone's inbox, every record owner-assigned and searchable. Quote build time cut from ~25 minutes of manual assembly to under 5 minutes with automatic rate card lookups — at 30–50 proposals a week, that's more than 10 hours of quoting time reclaimed per week. Xero double-entry eliminated entirely: accepted quotes auto-generate draft invoices, and supplier POs auto-push as Bills. A complete commercial audit trail now links every quote version, job record, PO, and document back to a single record — something the previous spreadsheet approach made impossible.
Capabilities applied
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