How it works
Four steps, then it keeps itself current.
Setting up takes an afternoon. After that it is a short queue of decisions — usually a few minutes a week — instead of an evening with a spreadsheet.
Set up your business and jobs
Create the business, add the jobs you are running, and pick a category set for your industry. Every category carries its GST treatment and decides whether a cost hits job profit or overhead.
Connect Xero, or import a file
Authorise Xero and pull your transactions in, or upload a CSV or QIF straight from your bank. Map your bank’s columns once, preview every row, then import.
Code costs and hours to jobs
Work the queue of uncoded expenses — approve, skip or split. Record hours against jobs and approve them for the pay period.
Read the margin
Job profit, category breakdowns and quarter-on-quarter comparisons. Drill into any figure on the dashboard.
Allocating a transaction to a job in Surplu is a separate thing from reconciling it in Xero. Keep reconciling your accounts in Xero — Xero stays your accounting system of record.
What you end up with
One number per job, and you can trust where it came from.
Every figure traces back to the transactions and hours behind it, so when a job looks thin you can open it and see exactly why.
Profit this quarter
$17,600
Riverside deck rebuild
$6,15033%
$18,400 in · $12,250 costs
Unit 4 bathroom fit-out
$1,70018%
$9,600 in · $7,900 costs
Warehouse lighting upgrade
$9,40038%
$24,500 in · $15,100 costs
Hillside retaining wall
$3503%
$11,200 in · $10,850 costs
Step-by-step setup instructions
The guide covers each screen in detail — creating your business, connecting Xero, working the transaction queue, labour, reports and billing.
Open the guide