Work sample 09 / 17Job management and accounting
Tradify and Xero set-up for a residential builder
How I'd approach a Melbourne residential builder (extensions, renovations and decks) whose quotes, variations and supplier bills sit in email, so that every approved variation is invoiced, every supplier bill lands on a job, and each job shows its real margin.
- Area
- Job management and accounting
- Tools
- Tradify · Xero
- Typical scope
- US$1,500–2,500
- Timeline
- About 5 weeks, 4 milestones
Work sample: realistic data, not a past client job. Amounts are in AUD and GST is 10%.
01The problem
A small residential builder runs 85 jobs across a year: bathroom and kitchen renovations, decks, rear extensions, granny flats and second storeys. Quotes are written in Word, variations are agreed by email or on site, and supplier bills arrive as PDFs in an inbox. The bookkeeper enters them into Xero as they come.
Owners usually notice it like this:
- A client approves a variation, the carpenters build it, and it never makes it onto an invoice
- Supplier bills are in Xero but not tied to a job, so nobody knows what a job has actually cost until the end
- The quote, the stage invoices and the final cost are three different documents with three different totals
- Margin is a guess until the accountant looks at the year
In this sample, 38 of 160 approved variations ($177,050 ex GST, $194,755 including GST) were never invoiced, across 28 jobs. And 122 bills (410 of 2,200 bill lines, $925,568 ex GST) reached Xero with no job against them.
02The outcome
This is what the setup does and delivers:
- Quotes are written from a Tradify price list and a quote template per job type, with prime cost and provisional sum items clearly marked
- Stage invoices are raised from the accepted quote as a percentage, following the builder's payment schedule
- Every variation is a separate job task with its own costs, so it can be invoiced on its own and a weekly list shows any approved variation not yet invoiced
- Supplier bills are attached to a job, copied into job costs, and sent to Xero
- Invoices and payments flow between Tradify and Xero, so the office does not type anything twice
- Each job has a Job Financial Report showing estimated cost, actual cost, invoiced, still to invoice, gross profit and margin
03Scope
| Deliverable | What's included | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Health check of quoting and billing | Review of recent quotes, variations, supplier bills and the Xero chart of accounts; findings, risk list and a fixed quote | US$300, and the findings are yours to keep. If the findings change the plan, I re-quote before M2 |
| Tradify price list and quote templates | Price list cleaned and loaded with buy and sell prices; quote templates per job type with section headings, prime cost and provisional sum items | Supplier price files can be imported to update existing items by item code |
| Variation workflow | Variation form, job task naming, invoicing steps and a weekly "approved, not invoiced" check | Variations are tracked as job tasks, or as a separate variation job when that suits the builder better |
| Supplier bills to jobs | A routine for attaching bills to jobs and copying them into job costs; existing bills reviewed for missing jobs | Job costs use ex-GST amounts. Bills can be entered by hand or imported from a CSV |
| Xero invoice and bill sync | Account codes, tax rates, invoice numbering choice and sync presets; bill tie-out between Tradify and Xero | Quotes and purchase orders stay in Tradify. Invoices, payments, credit notes, bills, customers and suppliers are what sync with Xero |
| SOPs and handover | One-page routines for quoting, variations, supplier bills and month-end; recorded walkthrough | Written for the office and the site supervisors |
| Not included | Replacing Xero, building contracts and legal wording, and estimating software | Quoted separately if wanted |
Not included: payroll, STP or BAS lodgement.
| Item | Volume |
|---|---|
| Jobs across the 12 months to 30 September 2026 | 85 (76 complete, 9 live) |
| Quotes | 420 (85 accepted) |
| Variations | 160 (38 not invoiced) |
| Supplier bill lines | 2,200 on 667 bills |
| Accepted quote value | $7,725,000 ex GST |
| Approved variations | $821,900 ex GST |
04Walkthrough
4.1 The quote
Take Rear extension, Kew. The quote is built from a template for that job type, so the sections are the same on every extension and the client sees familiar headings.
Quote status across the 12 months:
4.2 Stage invoices and variations
Once the client accepts, stage invoices are raised from the quote using Copy to Invoice, Percentage of Quote, following the payment schedule in the contract. The percentages in this sample are illustrative: deposit 5%, base 15%, frame 25%, lock-up 30%, fixing 20%, completion 5%.
Each variation is a job task named with the variation number, for example "1016-V1 Steel beam size increase per structural design". Costs for that variation are assigned to the task, and it is invoiced with New Invoice, Time and Materials From Job, selecting only the variation task. Anything not selected stays uninvoiced, so nothing is billed by accident.
Variations on Rear extension, Kew:
Invoices on Rear extension, Kew:
2 variations (1016-V3 and 1016-V5, $10,850.00 ex GST in total) were approved but not invoiced in the old process. In the new setup they show on the weekly "approved, not invoiced" list until they are on an invoice. The contract total including all variations is $167,200.00 ex GST.
4.3 Supplier bills on the job
Each supplier bill is attached to its job. For a draft bill, approving it copies the items into the job's costs; for an approved bill, the materials can be copied across from the job's Cost tab. Costs use ex-GST amounts, so job margin is not understated by GST that can be claimed back.
Bill categories on Rear extension, Kew:
Bills are then sent to Xero from the job. Each month, the bills in Tradify are compared with the bills in Xero (by supplier, bill number and amount):
4.4 Xero set-up
Payments recorded or reconciled in Xero come back to Tradify and mark the invoice paid, so I check bank reconciliation habits in the health check.
4.5 Job margin, before and after
The Job Financial Report shows estimated cost, actual cost, invoiced, to invoice and gross profit. For Rear extension, Kew:
Estimated cost on the accepted quote was $110,000.00, so the report also shows how far actual cost drifted from the estimate.
Across the 76 complete jobs in the sample, margin when unbilled variations are left out versus included:
05Checks
| Check | Before | After | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every approved variation is either invoiced or on the "approved, not invoiced" list | 122 of 160 | 160 of 160 | PASS |
| Every supplier bill is on a job | 545 of 667 bills | 667 of 667 bills | PASS |
| Job cost = bills on the job + labour | Not available | 85 of 85 jobs | PASS |
| Bills in Tradify = bills in Xero | Not compared | 12 of 12 months, difference $0.00 | PASS |
| Stage invoices on complete jobs add up to 100% of the accepted quote | Not checked | 76 of 76 complete jobs | PASS |
06Milestones
| Milestone | What happens | Rough duration | What is signed off | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M1 · Health check and plan | Health check (US$300), review of quotes, variations and bills, payment schedule, account codes and sync presets agreed | About 1 week | Findings, plan and fixed quote | 25% |
| M2 · Tradify configured | Price list, quote templates, variation workflow, supplier and customer lists, Xero connection | About 2 weeks | A test quote, stage invoice, variation and bill run through to Xero | 40% |
| M3 · Month of live jobs checked | Live jobs moved in, a month of variations and bills run in the new process, bill tie-out | About 1.5 weeks, plus the month running | Tie-out at $0.00 and the weekly variation list reviewed | 25% |
| M4 · Handover | SOPs, walkthrough recording and a short review | About 0.5 week | Office and supervisors confirm they can run it | 10% |
The fixed quote follows the US$300 health check, so the price is based on what is actually in your files. If the health check changes the plan, I re-quote before M2.
Typical scope for this kind of project: US$1,500–2,500.
About 5 weeks, 4 milestones. Your software subscriptions are billed to you by the vendors.
07Handover
- Tradify price list and quote templates for each job type
- A variation form and the weekly "approved, not invoiced" check
- A routine for attaching supplier bills to jobs
- A monthly Tradify and Xero bill tie-out
- One-page SOPs for quoting, variations, bills and month-end
- A recorded walkthrough
- Prepared by Manaz Afzal
08Files
A screen from the sample workbook, then every file in the work sample. Select the image to open it full size.
tradify-xero-builder.xlsx › Summary
| File | What it is | Size |
|---|---|---|
| tradify-xero-builder.xlsx | Workbook with 10 tabs (Read me, Summary, Jobs, Quotes, Variations, Bills, Bill lines, Xero bill tie-out, Job type margins, Quote status). The Summary tab lines up every figure on this page with a live formula | 258.2 KB |
| tradify-xero-builder.pdf | This work sample as an A4 PDF (7 pages) | 346.2 KB |
| jobs.csv | 85 jobs with quote, variations, cost and margin | 13.9 KB |
| quotes.csv | 420 quotes with status | 27.6 KB |
| variations.csv | 160 variations, with GST and whether they were invoiced in the old process | 17.7 KB |
| bills.csv | 667 supplier bills with GST | 45.4 KB |
| bill_lines.csv | 2,200 bill lines assigned to jobs | 226.6 KB |
| xero_bill_tieout.csv | Monthly Tradify and Xero bill tie-out | 0.7 KB |
Tell me what’s bugging you and I’ll tell you where I’d look first.
Send a short note on Upwork about what is slowing the business down. I’ll reply with where I’d start, and whether the US$300 Systems Health Check is the right first step.