How Plotstead works

Your property

The outline of the whole place. We pull it from LINZ when you type in your address, and it's what the map jumps back to when you tap the home button.

Not right? Cross-leases are often odd, and plenty of boundaries don't follow the fence line anyway. Open your property name at the top of the dashboard and you can draw your own or restore the LINZ one. You can swap back either way, so have a go.

Areas

An area is any part of your property worth naming. It's how your assets get sorted. The home paddock where the tractor lives, the vege garden, the shared driveway, the back block. Rooms work just as well as paddocks. If you'd say "it's in the ___", that's an area.

An area can be just a name if that's all you need. Draw an outline as well and the map knows where it is and how big it is. Better than that, it works out which area an asset belongs to the moment you drop a pin inside one.

Create one under Areas → Add, then hit Draw whenever you're ready. Name it today and draw it next weekend if you like. Nothing waits on the outline.

Assets, and the three shapes they take

An asset is one thing you own or look after. A bore pump, a gate, the ute, a heat pump, a smoke alarm. On the map it starts life as a pin, which is just a point where the thing is.

Plenty of things aren't a point though. When you drop a pin you can carry on drawing, and what you end up with changes as you go.

• One point, and it's a pin The bore pump. A gate, the letterbox, the septic lid, a smoke alarm. Anything you'd stand next to.
• Keep going and it's a run The pipe from the bore out to the trough. The fibre line up the driveway, a fence, a power cable, a farm track. The map counts up the length while you draw.
• Close it up and it's a shape The house footprint. A shed, the woolshed, a tank pad, that patch of gorse you keep meaning to deal with. Once you've got three points a Close button turns up, and the map starts telling you the area instead of the length.

Changed your mind? Reopen turns a shape back into a run and Undo takes back the last point. Nothing is saved until you press Finish, so there's no harm in fiddling.

Parts, and what belongs to what

Two different ideas here, and it's worth knowing which one you're after.

• Part of. Fitted to something, and sold with it. The outboard on the boat, the heat pump and the smoke alarms in the house. Add these from the asset itself with Add part, then pick something new or something already in your register.
• In an area. Just sitting there, and could be wheeled out tomorrow. The car on the drive, the wheelbarrow in the shed.

The house itself is an asset. Draw its footprint and the things bolted to it go in as parts. If you want to sort by room as well, add areas for the rooms. Anything pinned inside one gets filed there, and where areas overlap the smallest one wins.

What's the red crosshair?

Nearly everyone tries to tap the spot first. Fair enough, that's how every other map works. This one does it the other way round. There's a red crosshair sitting in the middle of the screen and that's where your point goes. Move the map underneath it until it's sitting on the spot you want, then press the button.

The reason is your finger. At most zoom levels a fingertip covers a good few metres of paddock, and you can't see what's underneath it. The crosshair is never hidden, so you can line it up on the corner of a shed and actually know you got the corner. It's the same on a phone, a tablet and a desktop, which is the other half of it.

It reads as fiddly written down and takes about ten seconds in practice. The first point you add each session can take a second or two to get going, so give it a moment before you tap again. There's a bonus you'll notice later: because a tap doesn't place anything, you can pan and pinch as much as you like without the app asking whether you meant to add something.

Why runs snap

As you place a corner it pulls onto anything close by. Another asset's pin, the corner of another run, an area outline, the boundary itself. If nothing's near enough it tries the wall between two corners, and failing that it holds your new wall square to the one you drew last. It tells you what it caught.

That's what stops a pipe finishing a metre short of the pump it feeds, or two paddocks sharing a fence with a sliver of nothing in between. There's a payoff later too. A run that ends exactly on a pin will follow that pin if you ever move it.

Now and then it's the last thing you want. Snap sits with the drawing buttons and turns it off, and it comes back on by itself once you've finished what you were drawing.

Out on the block

Use GPS drops a pin exactly where you're standing. If you're drawing a run you can walk it with GPS instead of tapping corners, which is the easy way to do a fence line or a trench.

Keep Plotstead open while you walk and it'll hold the screen awake. If something interrupts you, the walk is saved and offered back next time you open the map.

What's coming, what's gone

Two things, and telling them apart is most of understanding the Ledger.

• A cost is money that has moved. Usually out: the pump service you paid for in March. Sometimes in: the rent, or what the old trailer sold for. There's a Direction on every one, Money out or Money in, and picking a category like Rent received sets it for you. Either way it has a date and an amount, it sits in the Ledger, and it's what your accountant sees.
• Expected is money you know about but haven't got yet. Rates, insurance, the power, and the rent arriving on the first, which is why the Expected tab totals what's coming in as well as what's going out. It usually repeats, the amount is your estimate until it happens, and none of it reaches the Ledger until it does.

Ticking one off turns it into a cost. That's the bit people miss. When the WOF comes due and you mark it done, Plotstead asks what it actually cost and puts that in the Ledger. Nothing lands there until you tick it off, because until then nobody knows the number.

Which is why the amount on a reminder is a guess and the amount when you tick it off is the real one. A WOF is rarely the same price two years running. Put whatever you expect on the reminder so the yearly total means something, then correct it when you pay.

Putting a cost in

Two ways, and the difference is only what it gets attached to. Open the asset and use Costs → Add for anything about that thing: a service, a part, a repair. Use Add on the Ledger for whatever isn't about one thing in particular, and pick the property itself. That's where the rates, the insurance, the mortgage and the rent coming in belong.

Attaching it to an asset is worth the extra second. Everything filed against something totals up on it, so the pump ends up telling you what it has cost since you got it. That is the number that answers "do I repair this again or replace it", and it's not a number anybody works out by scrolling a list.

The invoice number

There's a reference box next to the description. Put the invoice or receipt number in it, whatever the supplier called it and in whatever form they wrote it.

It's the difference between a line that makes a claim and a line you can follow back to a piece of paper. "Repairs $1,240" is the first; the same line reading invoice 44821 is the second, and that's what a seven-year record-keeping obligation is actually asking for. It comes out in the spreadsheet as its own column, so anyone checking a figure can go straight to the document.

Plenty of spending has no reference at all: the cash you handed over at the yard, the automatic payment. Leave it empty and nothing minds.

The receipt itself

The paper can go in as well. Once an entry is saved it has a Receipts section: photograph the invoice, or attach the PDF it arrived as, and it stays with that payment. Whoever can see the cost can see its receipt, and nobody else.

A job that cost something gets there from its own sheet. Mark it done, put the cost in, and the button under the cost opens the ledger entry the job made, which is where the receipt goes.

Not paid yet

There's a tick box for a cost you know about but haven't paid. The invoice that turned up, the quote you've accepted. It sits in the Ledger so you don't forget it, and it's kept out of the totals until you say it's paid, because until then no money has actually gone anywhere.

GST

Put in what actually left your bank, GST and all. That's the amount whether you're registered or not. Inland Revenue puts it plainly: when you claim income tax deductions, you use the cost of expenses including the GST.

The GST content box under it is a separate note of how much of that total was GST. It's only worth filling in if you're registered, because that's the part you claim back in a GST return, and the export totals it for you.

Not registered? Then you won't see that box at all. Open the property, set GST to not registered, and it goes away. There's nothing to claim back without a registration, and you deduct the GST-inclusive cost regardless, so the GST inside a total is never a number you have to do anything with.

It's hidden rather than sitting there showing 0.00, because 0.00 would be saying the thing had no GST in it, and almost everything does. The GST is real. It just isn't yours to account for. Anything you'd already recorded a GST figure against keeps showing it, so nothing disappears on you.

Renting out a house is its own case, and worth reading from the source. Long-term residential rent is exempt from GST, so you don't register, file or claim GST on that rent or on its expenses, and a landlord can't claim GST on dwelling costs like maintenance, rates and insurance. That holds even if you're registered for something else on the property, because the claim follows what the cost was for.

Short-stay letting is the other way round. It's a taxable activity, so it does count towards the $60,000 of turnover that makes registering compulsory. If you're doing both on one property, that's a conversation with an accountant rather than a setting in here.

And if you are registered, not everything has GST in it. Interest, bank fees, rates penalties, and anything bought from someone who isn't registered either. On those, put 0 in the GST content rather than taking the figure Plotstead offers. It works the GST back out of the total for you, which is right most of the time and wrong on exactly these.

One more thing worth doing while you're here, and it takes about five minutes for a whole property: say what earns you income. It's what turns the Ledger from a list of spending into something an accountant can work from.

Where jobs fit in

A job is a piece of work. Replace the trough, service the mower, get the chimney swept. It can be something you're planning or something that's already happened, and either way it's a record of work rather than a record of money.

Why there are two

A reminder is a standing arrangement. It doesn't finish. The WOF comes round every year whether you think about it or not, and ticking one off doesn't end it, it moves it to next year.

A job is one piece of work. It starts, it finishes, and then it stays on the record. Dave came out on the Tuesday, replaced the impeller, charged $345.

That's the whole difference. A reminder points forwards at a date. A job points backwards at something that happened, which is why a job can be to do, in progress or done, and a reminder is only ever coming up.

Stuck? Ask whether you'll want to look it up. "When was the pump last serviced, and who did it?" is a question you'll ask in three years. "When did I last get a WOF?" isn't, because the sticker on the windscreen says. Things you'll want to look up are jobs. Things you just need telling about are reminders.

Whose is it

A reminder goes to a person, never to a contact, and that difference says what a reminder is. It's a duty to notice something, and there's nobody at the other end of a phone number to do the noticing. A contact is who you ring, not who gets told.

A job goes either way, because it's work rather than a duty. Somebody here is doing it on Saturday, or the electrician is coming Tuesday and will send an invoice.

So if you want a contractor to hold a reminder, give them access from their contact card. They join People without leaving your contacts, and they turn up in the list from then on.

The household at the top of that list is a real answer rather than an empty one. It means nobody in particular, and everyone who can see that sort of thing sees it. That's usually what you want for the rates and rarely what you want for somebody's own car.

Which makes three things that can put a cost in the Ledger, and it's worth seeing them side by side:

• You add one. Straight in, from the asset or the dashboard.
• You tick something expected off. The reminder comes due, you mark it paid, it asks what it cost.
• You finish a job. Mark it done, put in what it cost, and that lands in the Ledger too, filed against the same asset and the same contractor.

A job only ever puts one cost in, however many times you edit it afterwards. Change the price on a job you've already marked done and it corrects what's there rather than adding a second one.

So when do I use which?

Use a reminder when it's the date that matters and it comes round. WOF, rego, insurance, a warranty running out. You want telling before it's due, and there's nothing to write down afterwards.

Use a job when it's the work that matters. Something needs doing, somebody's coming to do it, and you'd like it written down with who did it and what they charged. The annual service is a job, and so is the pump-out and the vet visit: in three years you'll want to know when it was last done and by whom. A new asset suggests both kinds, under Reminders and Jobs, and either is off until you give it a date.

Plenty of things are both, and that's fine. The WOF reminder tells you it's due in a fortnight; taking the car to the mechanic is the job. Same afternoon, two records. You don't have to pick.

Where each one ends up: a reminder shows in Coming up, and in the Ledger when it costs something. A job shows in Coming up if you gave it a date, in the Work log always, and in the Ledger when it costs something.

Work that comes round

Some things come round and are work. Topping up the bore, the annual service, checking the traps. Make those a job and set Repeats on it. Tick it off and the next one is written for you, dated on the same cycle, so the thing you do every week builds a history instead of vanishing each time.

The finished one stays finished, with the date, who did it and what it cost. Only the new one is waiting. That is the difference from a reminder, which has one date that keeps moving and leaves nothing behind.

If it cost something you'll also be asked who was paid, and that's a separate question on purpose. Often it's the same answer: Derek did the job and Derek got the money. But if you did the work yourself with a part from the hardware shop, the job is yours and the money went to them. Whoever you name on the job is filled in as the payee when they're a contact, so the common case is still one tap.

Nothing repeats unless you say so, on a job or a reminder. Turning a repeat off on a reminder finishes it: it won't come round again and the reminder goes, though anything it cost stays in the Ledger.

Photos of the job

A job has its own Photos & documents. The leak, the fitting that cracked, the quote, and afterwards the work as it was left. You don't have to save the job first: give it a title, add the photo, and it saves itself on the way.

They belong to the job and not to the thing it's on, which is the point. A photo of this year's leak filed on the pump sits beside the nameplate for ever. Filed on the job it's there when you look the job up, and the pump's own photos stay the ones that say what the pump is.

Anyone who can see the job can see them, whatever they're shown of the money, and the first four print on the job's brief. That's the reason an invoice doesn't go here: a brief has no prices on it, and a photographed invoice is a price. The receipt has its own place, on the ledger entry.

On a job that repeats, photos stay with the one they were taken for. The next one starts clean, so anything true every time belongs in the asset's notes. Reminders don't take photos at all: a reminder is a date to notice, and there's nothing to keep once it has passed.

When it could honestly be either

Bin night is the one that stops people. It comes round every week, so it's a reminder. But it's also something somebody has to go and do, so should it be work?

Neither answer is wrong, and that's the point: it depends on what you want out of it. A reminder leaves no trail. It nudges you on the Tuesday, you tick it, and it moves to next week. A repeating job leaves a line in the work log every week, with a date and a name on it.

So ask whether you want to know who did it. In a household where two people take turns and somebody is keeping score, the trail is the whole value. If it's just a nudge so the bins go out, the trail is fifty-two rows a year nobody will read. Same weekly cycle either way; the only choice is which of the two you write it down as.

Tax time, and what earns income

The Ledger works in New Zealand tax years, not calendar years, because that's what your accountant wants. Pick the year, then export. The CSV is there on any plan and the ledger report is part of Plus. Both cover exactly the period and filters you've got on screen, so what you're looking at is what comes out.

Unpaid costs stay out of the totals until you tick them off. Which year a cost falls in is decided by its date, though, and not by when you ticked it: there's one date on a cost and it's the one you gave it. So when the date and the day the money actually left straddle 31 March, the date is what counts, and your accountant will say which of the two they want.

The question that does the work

Most of what an accountant does with a property is sort the spending into what relates to income and what doesn't. New cylinder in the cottage you rent out goes in one pile. Cambelt on the family Mercedes goes in the other. Same category, same plumber sometimes, completely different answers.

Which is why the question isn't asked on the cost. It's asked once, on the thing. Open an asset, open Cost & value, and there's Earns income with three answers:

• Yes. A rental, or something only used for it.
• No, private. Nothing on it relates to income.
• Partly. Both, so somebody has to split it. We don't guess the split, and we don't ask you for a percentage: that wants a logbook or a floor-area calculation, and a number typed in once and never looked at again is worse than no number, because it looks researched.

Answer it once and every cost against that thing is sorted from then on, including ones you entered last year.

The place itself

Your property gets the same question, worded as what the place is rather than what it earns. Tap the property name at the top of the dashboard, the one with the small pencil next to it, and it sits just under the address as What is this place: my own home, a rental, or both.

That answer is the one that decides what happens to the rates, the insurance and the mortgage. Those are the biggest numbers on most blocks, and the ones that get split.

It's also the fastest five minutes you can spend in here. Say the place is your own home and everything on it is private without you touching a single asset. Say it's a rental and it all goes the other way. Only both leaves work to do, and that's honest: on a block with a cottage let out, somebody does have to go through and say which things are which.

Two things make that a lot less work. Give the rental its own area, and the Ledger, the register and the export can all be narrowed to it, so you're working through exactly the right list instead of the whole place. And if the rental is a building, make its oven, heat pump and cylinder parts of that building: answer once for the building and they all follow.

An area is for finding things, not for answering about them. Putting the mower in the cottage's area doesn't mark it as earning, because the same paddock can hold the tenant's woodshed and your own tractor. The answer always sits on the thing itself, or on what it's part of.

Parts follow the thing they're part of

Mark the boat private and the outboard is private. Mark the tiny house as earning and the oven, the heat pump and the hot water cylinder inside it earn too. You don't tag appliances one at a time. If you do answer a part directly, that wins.

So the short answer to "we let the tiny house on Airbnb, what do I tag?": the tiny house, once, as Yes. The repairs to the oven in it are then sorted without you doing anything else.

Seeing it on the Ledger

Once you've answered anything, a filter appears on the Ledger. It's worth a look even if you never file a return: nothing else in the app can tell you what everything that doesn't earn you a cent costs to run each year.

The same filter turns up on Assets, and that's the one to use when the export has told you something hasn't been answered. Set it to Not answered and you get exactly the things still waiting, which empties as you work through it.

Private spending is fine, and it doesn't disappear. It's still your ledger, it still totals, and it's still on the export, just under its own heading rather than mixed in.

What your accountant gets

The PDF sorts the year into what earns, what needs splitting, what's private and what nobody's answered for. Each gets its totals, and all but the private one get the category breakdown as well: private is on there so the figures add up against your ledger, without itemising a household's own spending for somebody who isn't going to read it. The spreadsheet carries the same answer as a column, next to the invoice number, the job and who was paid. Enough to check any figure without opening the app.

Anything you haven't answered is named on the document rather than quietly counted as private. That's on purpose. A blank means nobody has been asked, and reporting your rental as private on the strength of a default you never saw is exactly how a year of records goes missing.

Plotstead records what each thing is used for. Whether any of it is deductible depends on splitting, on ring-fencing rules, and on what else you earn. Rental deductions can only come off rental income, not off your wages, which catches people out in the first year. That's your accountant's call, and it's worth having them look over the first export you do.

Contacts, People, and who goes where

Two lists, and one rule tells them apart. If they're paid to be there, they're a contact first. If they live there, they're a person.

• Contacts is the property's phone book. The plumber, the vet, whoever does the books, whoever drilled the bore. Everyone on the property sees all of it.
• People is who's on the place. Family, and anyone you've given access to.

Somebody can be both. Open their contact card, hit Give access, and they join People without leaving your contacts. They land under Who works on it, so they stay off the birthday list and out of the "whose is it" picker on your assets.

It's set when they accept and can't be changed later. Invite the pest control contractor from People and you'd have to revoke and start again from their contact card.

People → Add puts family on the list with a birthday. People → Invite gives them a login.

What an invitation comes with

It lasts seven days, and only the address you sent it to can accept it. If they sign in with a different address, send it to that one instead. Opening your own invitation while you're signed in won't use it up. Somebody who already has a property of their own sees it waiting on their dashboard as well as in the email.

Somebody you give access from their contact card starts with costs and private things switched off. Open their card under People once they've joined to share more. Anybody you invite from People starts with everything, the way family would.

When somebody moves on

The groundskeeper leaves. The plumber retires. Open their card and there are two buttons that look alike and do very different things.

• Archive takes them off the lists and out of the pickers, and leaves their name on everything that already has it. The job they did in 2024 still says they did it. Bringing them back is one tap.
• Delete takes the row away. The work and the money stay, but the name goes with the row, so a job that said Derek says nobody, and a ledger entry that said Derek says nobody either.

Delete is the owner's. Somebody you've made an editor sees Archive and no Delete, here and on assets.

Archive is almost always the one you want. Delete is for the row you typed by mistake: the duplicate, the wrong name, the contact you added to the wrong property. Once a job, a cost or a reminder names them, Delete is greyed out and the card says why, so the only way to take somebody off the lists without losing their name is Archive.

Deleting can't be undone from inside the app, and the confirmation tells you how much is about to stop saying who. If you have taken a backup, that backup is a restore point and the names in it come back with it. Settings → Backup makes one, and Exports covers what else comes out.

Access is a separate thing

Neither button is available while somebody still has access to the property, and the card says so. Revoke their access first, then archive them. Archiving on its own is a housekeeping decision, not a security one: it decides whose name you get offered when you're filling in who did something, and nothing else.

Where they go, and how they read

The bottom of Contacts and of People carries a quiet line saying how many are archived and hidden. That is the way back to them, and the way to bring one back.

In a dropdown they sit at the end under No longer here, greyed out. That pair is the whole point: an old record still reads correctly, and next week's work cannot be handed to somebody who has gone.

When something is sold or scrapped

The ute goes to Turners. The old bore pump comes out and a new one goes in. Open the asset and there is the same pair of buttons.

• Archive takes it off the map, out of the register and out of the pickers. Every cost, job and photo already on it stays and still says what it was for, so "what did the old ute cost me" is a question the ledger can still answer. Its reminders and any unfinished jobs end, the way they would on a delete, and they don't restart if you bring it back.
• Delete takes the row away, with its reminders, its unfinished jobs and its photos. It is greyed out once a cost or a finished job names the asset, because those would stop saying what they were for, and the sheet says so.

The short version: you can still record what it cost and what it looked like. You can no longer plan anything for it.

Only an owner sees Delete. An editor archives, which can always be undone, and an owner decides whether it goes for good. Editors still delete reminders, unfinished jobs and, where you share costs with them, ledger entries. A finished job is part of the work log, so deleting one is the owner's as well.

Anything fitted to it is asked about, the same as on a delete: archive the outboard with the boat, or keep it in your register as a thing of its own. Bring the boat back and whatever went with it comes back too.

The bottom of the register carries the same quiet line saying how many are archived and hidden, and the filters can show the archived on their own. Its photos stay against your storage, because they are still its photos; delete is what frees the space.

What each person can see

Nobody has to see all of it. Open anyone under People and there's what they can see: five questions, starting at the widest answer.

• Costs. Nothing, costs for the things they can see, or every cost on the property. Whoever does your books wants the third.
• Private things. Anything you've marked private stays yours, with its reminders, jobs and costs.
• Which kinds of thing. Everything, or the ones you tick. A plumber sees the water and not your car. The property itself is one of them: the rates, the insurance, and anything else recorded against the place. Its documents go with it only when some costs are shared too.
• Only their own work. The pest control contractor gets their own bait stations, not the family's list.
• Contacts. The property's phone book, with the numbers and your notes about people. On for everybody unless you say otherwise; off for the one contractor who has no business in it. Somebody you gave access from their own contact card still sees their own name on the work you give them, and nothing else from the book.

Before you save it says what they come to: "Can see 3 of 20 assets, 3 of 15 reminders." Worked out by the rules that decide what reaches their phone, so it's an answer rather than a guess.

Keeping one thing private

Keep this private hides an asset and everything hanging off it: reminders, jobs, costs, and anything fitted to it. You still see it, and so does anyone you've allowed private things.

Giving somebody a job

Assigning a reminder or a job lets them see it, even if it isn't one of their kinds. Private is the one thing that doesn't override, and the screen says so at the time.

Handing work on can take it off your own list. The screen tells you before you save, and the note says who has it now.

The longer version, with the three roles and the four arrangements this was built around, is at plotstead.co.nz/sharing.

Getting it out on paper

Four documents come out of Plotstead. Three of them have two buttons, CSV and a PDF: the spreadsheet is yours on any plan, and the laid-out document is part of Plus. The fourth, the job brief, is a PDF alone and part of Plus like the rest, because it's a page made for handing over rather than rows of your own.

That split is deliberate and it's worth being plain about. You never pay to get your own figures out. What Plus buys is the version you can hand somebody without tidying it up first.

What you're looking at is what comes out

There's no dialog asking which columns you want. Whatever the screen is filtered to is what the document covers, so if you narrow the Ledger to one asset and one tax year, that's the statement you get. Change the filters, press it again.

The four of them

• The ledger, two ways. Entries is every line day by day with a running balance, which is what an accountant asks for. Summary is the same period totalled by category, which is what you look at yourself. Both carry whatever the screen has narrowed: the period, the category, one asset or one area, who was paid, and whether it earns income.
• The asset register. Everything on the Assets screen as you've filtered it, grouped by area with a total at the foot, and a map of where it all is. This is the list an insurer asks for and almost nobody has. It says how many have no replacement value on them yet, so the total is never read as the whole picture.
• A brief for one asset. Open something and look under Create a brief. One page: where it is with a map and the coordinates, what it is, what's fitted to it, what's due and what's been done. No prices anywhere on it, so you can send it to whoever's coming without thinking twice.
• A brief for one job. Open a saved job and look under Create a brief. The job on top in your own words, with when it's wanted, whose it is and the photos you took of it. Under that, the thing it's on: the map, what it is, its photos, its manuals by name, and what's been done to it before. No prices and no reminders. It's the sheet you hand over at the gate.

A word on the maps

The register's map is worth filtering first. All of it at once is a lot of dots; narrowed to one kind it becomes the thing you actually want, which is every bait station or every length of pipe and where they are. An asset nobody has dropped a pin on says so on its own page rather than quietly leaving the question unanswered.

These are drawn on our server, so unlike almost everything else they need a connection. Out of coverage the button will tell you so rather than sitting there. It also means a photo still waiting on your phone isn't on a brief yet. The job says so beside the button when that's the case.

Where the buttons are

Ledger, beside the period. Assets, beside Add. And inside any saved asset or job, under Create a brief. If the PDF has a padlock on it you're on the free plan, and the button explains rather than failing. Plus lives under Settings.

Working without a connection

Nearly everything works out of coverage. Assets, areas, contacts, reminders, costs, notes and photos are all saved on your phone first and sent up when you're back in range. Standing at a bore pump with no bars is a normal place to be using this.

A handful of things do need a connection, because they're not really about your property: signing in, setting up a new property, inviting somebody, changing what they can see, changing your password, and closing your account. Each of those says so if you try it with no signal.

Why it asks you to sign in sometimes

Signing in lasts a week, and every time you use the app the week starts again. Open it on Thursday and you've got until the Thursday after. So in normal use you'll rarely see the sign-in screen at all. It turns up when the app has gone a full seven days untouched.

There's a reason it doesn't just last forever: a phone that stays signed in permanently hands over everything on it if it's lost.

Nothing is lost when it does ask. Your property is on the server, anything you've added is still on the phone, and photos waiting to upload stay waiting. Signing back in picks up exactly where you left off.

The one thing worth knowing: signing in is the part that needs coverage. Heading somewhere without any for more than a week? Open the app before you go and the clock starts from then.

Why the aerial photo looks old

The imagery comes from LINZ, and rural New Zealand only gets re-flown every few years. Your paddock can be showing photos from a while back while a town half an hour away is bang up to date.

Tap the layers button on the map and it'll name the survey and how old it is, so at least you know what you're looking at. Your pins sit where you put them whatever the photo underneath is doing.

How accurate is the boundary?

Close, but not survey accurate. The boundary line and the aerial photo can both sit a bit off where things really are. Photos taken near the edge of a flight path get stretched more than ones taken straight down the middle, and a boundary can land a metre or two from where the pegs actually are.

For most of what you'll do here that's neither here nor there. Dropping a pin on the bore, walking a line down a trench, working out roughly how big the back paddock is: all fine.

Where it matters is right on the line. Before you put up a fence, a shed or a right of way anywhere near a boundary, check the title and the survey plan, and get a surveyor to look at it if there's any doubt at all. The positional accuracy of what's shown, boundaries and aerial photos included, may be approximate, and source documents are what you use to determine positions accurately.

How accurate is the map goes through the whole picture: what your phone's GPS is actually doing, why an aerial photo leans, and where that boundary line comes from. Worth reading before you send anybody out to dig, and it opens without a login so you can send it to them too.

Light or dark

Plotstead follows your phone or computer to start with, so it goes dark when they do. Dark is easier on the eyes indoors and at night, and harder to read outside in daylight, so if you are mostly out on the property Settings → Theme will hold it on light and leave it there.

Hectares or acres

Areas come up in hectares to start with. If you think in acres, Settings → Measurements switches it over. That only changes the labels. Nothing about your property is stored any differently.