Uncategorized

For small trades who bill time and materials, it does the basics: time tracking, costs against a project estimate, invoicing and profitability reports. It does not manage subcontracts, valuations, retention or cost codes, and purchase orders cannot be tracked against a project budget in a construction-friendly way. Contractors with subcontract packages usually outgrow it.

Not in the way contractors need. Xero has purchase orders, but they are not committed costs on a project budget, so you cannot see what is ordered but not yet invoiced on each job. Tools such as Planyard, Buildxact and Fergus raise purchase orders against the job and sync the bills to Xero.

Xero handles CIS in the accounting side, not in Projects. Subcontractor CIS is included on all UK plans, and filing contractor CIS returns is a £5 a month add-on. The labour and materials split still has to be right on each bill before Xero works out the deduction.

For contractors who need budgets by cost code, purchase orders, subcontracts and forecasts, Planyard is built for that and syncs both ways with Xero. For small residential builders who mainly estimate and quote, Buildxact is a good fit. For trades running many small jobs, Tradify or Fergus are simpler and cheaper.

No. Every alternative in this guide connects to Xero, so Xero stays your ledger for bank feeds, VAT, CIS and payroll. The construction tool handles the project side and sends bills and invoices to Xero.