Kelpie put my whole business on my phone. I quote on site, the invoice goes out the second the job's done, and the money lands without me chasing it. Game changer for a small team.
Alex Tasseron Hakea Projects · Fairfield, VIC 
Job management software for carpenters.
Quoting, scheduling, variations and payments — Kelpie runs your whole carpentry business. Quote the deck off the plans, capture every variation before you cut, and it all syncs to Xero.
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What the crew reckons
Tradies who made the switch.
Real tradies, real businesses — running the whole job out of Kelpie.
Alex Tasseron Hakea Projects · Fairfield, VIC What's slowing chippies down
You're a gun chippy. The admin's the splinter.
The build's the easy part. It's the quoting, the variations done on a handshake and the chasing that eat your evenings.
01 • Quotes that bleed your margin
Under-quote the timber or the labour on a fixed-price deck and you wear it. One missed take-off, and a job you thought made money quietly didn't.
02 • Variations done on a handshake
A bench seat here, a wider step there — the changes the client adds mid-job, never written down, never priced, then argued over at the final invoice. The extra work you did for free adds up fast.
03 • Chasing payment after knock-off
Re-type the quote into an invoice at the kitchen table, send it, then spend a fortnight chasing the balance — an hour a night you'll never bill for.
A chippy's job, ran on Kelpie
From quote off the plans to paid in full.
A deck, a reno or a fit-out runs over days and weeks, with variations along the way. It all runs from the one app.
1 The quote · Off the plans
Price the deck and send a tidy PDF.
Do the take-off, pull your timber and labour straight from a saved template, and send a professional quote from the ute — one the customer can accept from their phone, with the scope agreed in writing.
- Templates for your usual jobs — decks, fit-outs and renos, ready to tweak and send.
- Materials and labour itemised — so the price covers what the job actually costs.
- Accepted on the spot — they accept from their phone, scope agreed, job booked in.
2 On site · The build
Price every variation before you cut.
When the client changes their mind mid-job, raise the variation and price it before you touch it — captured in writing, not on a handshake. Photos and notes save to the job, timesheets tick against it, and the whole crew sees what's next.
- Variations in writing — priced and captured before the work's done, so nothing's argued over later.
- Photos & notes on the job — snapped on site, saved to the job, not lost in a group chat.
- Timesheets against the job — so you can see the real labour on every build.
3 Job done · Paid
Invoice the lot — variations and all.
Mark the job done and the final invoice is the quote plus every agreed variation — no extras forgotten, nothing argued over at the kitchen table. Email a payment link or take tap-to-pay, and it syncs straight to Xero.
- Variations carried across — the final invoice already has every agreed extra, not done for free.
- Tap-to-pay or a payment link — card or bank transfer, money in days not weeks.
- Syncs to Xero — GST and your ABN carried across, nothing typed twice.
Built for the way chippies work
Everything a carpentry business runs on.
Six tools that used to mean a pile of paperwork and a Sunday night — now they're one tap apart.
Kelpie vs Buildxact
Every feature, every job — one simple plan.
Estimating tools are great at the take-off, then leave you to run the job, invoice and get paid somewhere else. Kelpie does the quote, the variations, the job and the payment — every feature, for one simple price per user.
How they stack up
Everything included
Buildxact Tiered plans, estimating-first
Works on any phone — iPhone or Android
Often Apple-first
The full app on mobile
Cut-down on mobile
Every feature included
No per-job caps or limits
Often capped
One simple price per user
Tiered plans
Every feature's included on every seat — no tiers, no per-job caps, no add-ons.
Questions, answered
What carpenters ask before switching.
Yes. When the client changes their mind mid-job, raise the variation, price it and capture it in writing before you touch the work — so every extra the client throws in is on the final invoice, not done for free.
Yes. Timesheets log against each job as the crew works, so you see the real hours and cost on every build — and you quote the next deck off what the last one actually took, not a guess.
Yep — Kelpie's the same full app on your phone, tablet and laptop, iPhone or Android. Quote from the ute, run the build on site, send the invoice and take payment — then pick it up on the laptop back home. Everyone gets the full app, not a stripped-back mobile version.
Yes. Import your customers and price-list items from a CSV in a few clicks, so you're not rekeying them one by one — and our team's happy to give you a hand getting set up.
Yes. Kelpie runs your quoting, jobs, variations and payments, then syncs every invoice to Xero — GST and your ABN carried across, so nothing's typed twice and your BAS stays organised for the next tax period.
Keep Xero — it's great at the books. But Xero doesn't quote a deck off the plans, document a variation, track your labour or take payment on site. That's everything before the money hits your accounts — and it's exactly what Kelpie does. Then it syncs straight to Xero, so the numbers land without you typing them twice.
It is. ABN and GST are built into every invoice, variations and job costs live on the job, and it works with Australian accounting software and your accountant. It speaks tradie out of the box.
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Run your carpentry business from one login.
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