Not quite like anything else
Plotstead is property and asset management software, made in New Zealand and used anywhere, built for lifestyle blocks, farms, rentals and ordinary homes. The closest anyone has come to describing it: a rich
spreadsheet built on top of an aerial photograph. Mapping software draws the
picture and expects you to learn GIS. An inventory app keeps the
list and has no map. Plotstead is the land, the assets on it, the
jobs done to them and the books, in one place.
Put your pipes, cables, gates, sheds and gear straight onto an
aerial photo of your place, instead of a spreadsheet. Drop a pin on
a single thing, tap out a line along a pipe run, or trace a shape
around a building or an area like the shed or the back paddock.
Draw it with a finger or a mouse, or walk or drive the route while
the app records and plots it for you, and reshape any of it later.
Who uses it, and what for
Your boundary, already drawn
Type the address when you set up and the parcel arrives from
LINZ with its boundary on the map. Nothing to trace, and no GPS
unit involved. Outside New Zealand there is no parcel to fetch,
so you draw it: a few taps round the corners on the map.
Properties, broken down by asset
Every asset gets its own record: photos, documents, notes, the
fields its type suggests, and any of your own.
Compliance reminders
Reminders for the dates you have to keep: WOF, rego, insurance,
rates, smoke alarm tests, septic pump-outs and the three-yearly
pool barrier inspection. The New Zealand rules are built in, including the end of six-monthly WOFs in November 2026; elsewhere the same reminders are suggested, an inspection rather than a WOF, and you set the dates.
Work, before and after
A job is what needs doing, and afterwards it is what was done:
who, when, and what it came to. Set one to repeat and ticking it
off writes the next, on the same cycle, so the fortnightly round
keeps itself.
What everything costs
Log a repair against the thing that needed it, with the invoice
number and who did the work. Then ask what that asset has cost
you since the day you got it.
Ready for the accountant
Say once which things earn you income and which are private. At the
end of the tax year it comes out already sorted, instead of a
shoebox.
How it works
Briefs and reports
Print a brief for one job or one asset: what needs doing, where it
is on an aerial photo, what the gear is and what has been done to it
before. No prices on either. A dated register of the whole
place, which is what an insurer asks for after a fire. And the
map as you are looking at it, A4 or A3, for the wall.
What you can hand somebody
Role-based sharing
Invite others as owner, editor or viewer. Then narrow each one:
what they see of the money, whether private things are included,
which kinds of asset, and whose jobs.
Who sees what
Everyone you would have to ring
The vet, the plumber, the well driller, the sparky. Their number,
what they do, and the note that actually helps: ask for Dave, he
knows where the septic runs. Tap to call, and the work you file
against them remembers who did it.
Works offline
The apps work without an internet connection, and catch up the
moment you are back in range.
A vehicle from its plate
In New Zealand, enter the rego and Plotstead fills in the make, model and year, and when the WOF and the rego run out; elsewhere you type the car in, and its inspection and registration reminders carry your country's names and the dates you set. Those two become
reminders without you reading a windscreen.
See the month ahead
What is coming up as a calendar as well as a list, so you can see
what lands in the same week. Or subscribe to it from your phone's
own calendar, alongside everything else.
Have a rental or an Airbnb?
Money comes in as well as out. Rent goes in the ledger the same way
a repair does, as a one-off or set to repeat, and the totals show
what came in beside what went out.
Mark the cottage as earning income and everything fitted to it
follows, so the oven and the heat pump are sorted without tagging
them one at a time. At the end of the tax year, export it already split into what earns, what needs apportioning and what is private, as a PDF or a spreadsheet for your accountant. The year starts when your country's does, 1 April in New Zealand, 1 July in Australia, 6 April in Britain, and the day is yours to change.
The compliance dates come with it. Smoke alarm tests and their ten-year replacement, the septic pump-out, the pool barrier inspection and, in New Zealand, your Healthy Homes obligations, all in the same list of reminders as the car and the rates.
And the alarms come out as a document. Narrow the register to the
safety devices and export: every alarm on the place, what kind it is,
which room it is in, when it went in and when the battery runs out.
That is what you want in front of you at the start of a tenancy, and
it is the same two taps as everything else.
Questions people ask
What is Plotstead?
Plotstead is property and asset management software for New
Zealand. It puts your land, buildings, vehicles and the
infrastructure underneath, the pipes, cables, bores and septic
tanks, onto an aerial photo of your own place, and keeps the
manuals, photos, costs and maintenance history attached to each
one.
It then reminds you what falls due: WOF, rego, insurance,
rates, smoke alarms, septic pump-outs. It works with no signal
and syncs when you are back in coverage, which matters because
the things worth recording are usually the furthest from a cell
tower.
It is built for lifestyle blocks, farms, rural properties,
ordinary sections and rentals.
What people use it for.
I already use a spreadsheet. Why would I change?
Underneath it is the same idea, already wired up. Assets are one
sheet, reminders another, costs another, contacts another, and
they are joined to each other rather than copied between. A
repair knows which pump it was on, which invoice paid for it and
who did the work, without you keeping three tabs in step by
hand. And you can pull a spreadsheet back out whenever you want.
Can I track a rental or an Airbnb?
Yes. Rent goes in as a credit, one-off or set to repeat, beside
what the place costs to run. Mark the cottage as earning income
and everything fitted to it follows, then the tax year exports
already split into what earns, what needs apportioning and what
is private.
Can I let a contractor in without showing them everything?
Yes, and that is the point of it. Everyone you share with gets their
own answer to five questions: what they can see of the money, whether
private things are shared with them, which kinds of thing they see at
all, whether they see everyone's work or only their own, and whether
they see your contacts.
So the groundskeeper can have the run of the place without the
finances, the plumber can see the water and not your car, and an
accountant can be given every cost on the property while being shown
no assets at all. Who sees what.
Is it complicated to set up?
Type your address and the boundary arrives from LINZ, which is
most of it. After that you add things as you come across them:
photograph the nameplate on the pump, attach the invoice when it
turns up, put a date on the WOF while you are thinking about it.
Nothing is required. A half-filled record is worth more than a
perfect one you never made, so the forms suggest and never
insist.
Does it work outside New Zealand?
Yes. The map, the register, the reminders, the costs, the sharing
and the briefs are the same anywhere, and the map's Outdoor layer
covers the world. What is New Zealand's is the parcel lookup that
draws your boundary, the plate lookup and the WOF rules, so outside
New Zealand you draw the boundary yourself and date your own
reminders. It is already in use overseas.
Can I get my data back out?
Yes, on every plan including the free one, and that will not
change. Export any tax year or the whole lot as a spreadsheet
that opens straight in Excel. Letting a subscription lapse
leaves your records readable and exportable.
How does putting things on the map work?
There is a crosshair fixed in the middle of the screen and that
is where your point lands. Move the map under it until it sits
on the spot, then press the button. It is the other way round
from most maps, and the reason is your finger: at most zoom
levels a fingertip covers several metres of paddock and hides
the very thing you are aiming at.
One point is a pin, which is a pump or a gate. Keep adding
points and it becomes a run, which is how a pipe, a cable or a
fence goes in, and the map counts the length as you draw. Close
it up and it is a shape, and the map switches to telling you the
area instead. Out on the block you can walk a line with GPS
rather than tapping corners.
The full walkthrough
is in the help, with worked examples for a pipe from the
bore, a house footprint and a paddock.
Do I have to draw anything on the map?
In New Zealand, no: the boundary comes from LINZ on its own. Elsewhere you draw the boundary, once. And a thing does not need a place on the map to be worth recording: plenty of people run a car, its registration and its insurance without putting a single pin down.
Can I print the map?
Yes. Press the printer button on the map and the view on your
screen comes out as a PDF page, A4 or A3, portrait or landscape,
with the names at the size you choose. It prints north up on the
aerial imagery, with every area named whatever the zoom, a scale
bar, the kinds of thing on it as a key, and the imagery credited.
Switch some kinds off first and they stay off the page, so the
contractor gets the water and not the car. It is the page people
were printing from Google Maps and drawing on by hand, with your
own boundary, areas and pins already on it. Part of
Plotstead Plus, like the briefs and the
register.
How does offline work?
The app keeps a full copy of your property on the device, so out
the back of the block with no signal at all you can still drop a
pin, put a date on a reminder, log what the part cost, and read
every note and serial number you have saved. It goes up on its
own next time you are in coverage. That is rather the point: a
bore pump is usually the furthest thing on the place from a cell
tower.
Photos are the exception. They need a connection to upload, so
the app says so and keeps the picture on your phone until you
have one. The browser version needs a connection throughout,
since it reads from the server as it goes. The Android app is on
Google Play,
the iPhone app is in
TestFlight,
and the Windows app is in the
Microsoft Store.
