Xero and Plotstead work independently of each other, and they are better side by side. Xero is the source of truth for the money. What left the account, when, and how it nets off at the end of the year. Plotstead is the context for it: what each amount was actually spent on, where that thing is, and what it has cost you since you bought it.
It has a real ledger
Money in and money out, per property, with a running total. Twenty-two accounts to file against, shaped the way a New Zealand IRD return is and much the same list anywhere: repairs, contractor, parts, rates, insurance, interest, power, water, professional fees, rent received. Not a free-text box you have to keep spelling the same way.
Each entry carries the date it happened, what it was, which account it belongs to, who was paid, and the invoice number off the paper, so a line can be followed back to a document seven years later. GST, or VAT or sales tax where that is the word, is held as its own figure rather than worked out from the total, because zero-rated and tax-free things exist and no formula over a total is right for all of them.
Money that has not moved yet is separate from money that has. A rates instalment or an insurance renewal sits under Expected until it is paid, so the year ahead is visible without inventing history that has not happened. Nothing posts itself: a bill coming round offers to record the payment and waits to be told.
What it asks of you
Two habits, and they are the whole of it. File a cost against the thing it was spent on rather than into a heap: not "Repairs $1,240", but $1,240 on the bore pump.
And one question answered once per asset: does this earn income? The cottage does. The family car never will. You answer it when you add the thing, not every time you spend money on it.
Why that is a different job
Xero knows $1,240 left your account on the 12th of March.
It does not know it was the bore pump on the western boundary. Or that the pump is the one with the manual attached to its pin, or that the last one lasted nine years, or that the same contractor did both.
That is not a gap in Xero. It is a different record.
Two records, two jobs
At the end of the year
Export the tax year already split into what earns income, what is private, and what needs apportioning. As a spreadsheet on any plan, or laid out as a PDF on Plus.
It names what you have not answered rather than quietly guessing. A total that looks complete and is not is worse than no total. More about that.
What it leaves to Xero
No bank feeds. No GST or VAT returns. No invoices, no tenant payments, no trust accounting, no reconciling. Nothing here talks to your bank and nothing here files anything, and none of that is on a roadmap.
If those are your problem you want Xero, and you want it whether or not you ever use this. A ledger that knows what the money was spent on is not a replacement for one that knows the money left.
There is no live sync
Said plainly because you will find out anyway. Plotstead does not connect to Xero, QuickBooks or anything else. The handover is an export at the point you need one, and your accountant matches the asset costs against what is already in the books.
For most lifestyle blocks that is once a year and takes minutes. If you are running a commercial farming operation with livestock and crop budgets, the fully integrated New Zealand answer is Figured alongside Xero, and it does not do maps.
If you are registered for GST or VAT
Say so on the property, under the name and rate your country uses, and the ledger works the tax out of a total for you, per entry, rather than making you do it in your head. It is recorded, not filed: what you do with it at return time is still Xero's job and your accountant's.
Questions
Whether a cost is deductible is your accountant's call and your liability, not something this decides. See ready for the accountant for what the export actually contains, and what you can hand somebody for the rest of the paperwork. If your setup does not fit any of this, say so on the contact page.
