How Kavilo works

You choose the country and the currency when you sign up, and the address fills them in for you. They set the currency and the tax name printed on every quote and invoice — GST, VAT, IVA, TVA. You can change them later in Settings, but changing them after you have sent documents means old documents keep the old name.

Settings → Company. Kavilo works with the total of the document: the price you type already includes tax, and the tax setting says what is inside it. If you type a price without tax and the app thinks tax is inside, every invoice comes out short — this is the single most expensive setting in the app.

The trial is 14 days with everything on, including Takeoff. We ask for the card at the start and charge nothing until the trial ends — that way nothing stops on day 15. Cancel any time from Settings → Billing, and if you cancel during the trial you never pay.

Team → Invite. Every invitation carries a role, and the role decides what the person sees. Staff see the jobs they are on. A Subcontractor sees only the jobs they are assigned to. A Manager runs the operation. Only Admin sees wages and profit. Pick the role at the invitation — it is much easier than fixing it later.

Clients → New, then Jobs → New. The job carries the address, the client and a status you control (Scheduled, In progress, To invoice, Invoiced, Done). One of those statuses is marked as revenue — that is the one that makes the job count in the month.

Schedule says who is where and when. It is planning: it does not create hours and it does not cost anything. The hours that turn into money come from the time clock.

The team opens Time and clocks in on the job, with a photo and location if you require it. That is what feeds labour cost, the timesheet and the payroll figure. If someone forgets to clock out, the app catches it that evening and asks.

Materials & services → Material log, or from inside the job. If you log material used on a job, that is what counts as the material cost of the job — even if the supplier bill arrives later with a different total. The bill is the money leaving; the log is what went into the job.

Jobs → Quotes. Add lines from your own catalogue of materials and services, so the price is the one you decided, not one you remember. The total is the total: tax is inside it, the way the client will read it.

Send by email or copy the link. The client opens the document, sees the same numbers you see and accepts or declines. You see the answer in the app — no chasing to find out whether they opened it.

Takeoff turns a PDF plan into quantities: open the plan, set the scale once over a dimension you can read, then measure floors, walls, perimeters and rooms on screen. Openings come out of wall areas, and each room can have its own tile height. You can lay out and price a job you never drove to.

Each measurement belongs to a stage and carries a price. When you finish, Kavilo writes one quote line per item with quantity and total — nothing retyped, nothing lost between the plan and the price.

A variation is its own document with its own number, not an edit of the contract. That is what keeps you from invoicing the same work twice, and what makes the remaining contract value trustworthy.

Material and subcontractors on a job are job costs. Rent, insurance, accounting, fuel and subscriptions belong to no job — they are company costs. Pushing a company cost onto a job makes that job look terrible and every other job look better than it is.

Labour comes from the time clock. When the wage payment shows up on the bank statement, do not log it as a job cost — that counts the same hour twice. Kavilo marks wages as “left the account but is not a cost”, so the money still shows, in the right place.

Bills & bank → Inbox. Forward the supplier invoice or take a photo of it. The app reads the PDF, suggests the supplier and the amounts, and you confirm. Nothing becomes a cost on its own — you always confirm.

Bills & bank → Bank. Upload the CSV or PDF from your bank and every payment lands in a queue. For each line the app suggests a supplier and a category from what you confirmed before, and you send it to a job, to a company expense, or match it to a cost you already have. Importing the same file twice does not duplicate anything.

A purchase order is a promise to pay, to a supplier or a subcontractor. It is not a cost yet — the cost arrives with the bill. The cost report shows both separately so you never count the same spend twice.

What came in and what went out this month, and what is left. It is the whole business, including the costs that belong to no job.

What is left on each job, worst margin first. It is gross: it does not subtract rent, vehicles or insurance. A job at 20% here can still lose money after fixed costs — that is what the cost report is for.

Invoices your clients have not paid, and which ones are overdue. Kavilo can chase them for you: an automatic reminder goes out in your company's name.

Contract, quote, variation and invoice all store the gross amount, with tax inside. The tax field says which taxes are in there — it is never a number to add on top. This one rule is what keeps the app and your accountant agreeing.

When you tell the app that a line on your statement is a certain supplier or a certain category, it remembers that for your company. Next month the same line comes pre-filled.

Some things are true for everyone: a hardware chain is materials, a fuel station is fuel. When several unrelated companies confirm the same thing, it becomes a shared suggestion so a new company does not start from zero. Only generic categories travel — never a client, a job, an amount or a bill.

Bills & bank → What we learned. Everything the app believes is listed there, and you can remove anything you disagree with.

NZ$50 per active person per month. Takeoff is an add-on at NZ$75 per person per month, turned on per person — only the people who measure need it.

You pay only the days left in the period, and from the next month they are part of the normal monthly total, on the same billing day as the rest of your account. Someone leaving takes effect from the next period.

Settings → Billing → Manage subscription. Cancelling takes effect at the end of the period you already paid for, and you keep access until then.