Most joinery businesses start on spreadsheets, and plenty keep using them for years. A quote register, a job list, a stock sheet and a timesheet cost almost nothing, and everyone already knows how to use them. The question is not whether spreadsheets are bad. It is whether yours still fit the way the business now runs.

This page sets out where spreadsheets hold up, where they start to cost you, and what a move to FSManager involves. FSManager is business management software for New Zealand aluminium joinery companies, sold in Lite, Full and Pro plans.

Double entry and drifting documents

In a spreadsheet setup the same job is often typed several times: in the quote register, the job list, the ordering sheet, the invoice and the pay run. Each copy can drift from the others.

In FSManager the job inherits from the winning quote revision, including customer, specification and budget. Quote letters and producer statements are merged from job data rather than retyped, and a deposit recalculates if the sales price changes before it is paid. Xero is the accounting link, and MYOB is also available.

Versions and the audit trail

A spreadsheet shows the latest numbers but not who changed them. Overwritten quotes are hard to untangle when a customer says "you quoted me less than that".

FSManager keeps every quote revision and locks a sent one, so changes go in a new revision. Delivery date changes are recorded with a reason, protected job fields can only be changed through an admin edit with a logged reason, and jobs are cancelled rather than deleted. Contact logs, with follow-up dates, keep the conversation history with the job.

Time, job costing and work in progress

Hours on a timesheet are rarely linked to the job, so labour cost is a guess until someone reconciles it. Staff in FSManager start and stop tasks against jobs, or allocate their day at sign-out, and those minutes become the job's actual labour against the planned figure. The same time data feeds the pay week.

Lite gives you the Job Manager board and planned against actual minutes per task. On the Full plan, which goes on sale in November 2026, back-costing compares actual cost with the quoted budget and calculates work in progress from live data, using time, supplier invoices and materials.

Key-person risk

If one person built the workbook, one person can run it. FSManager moves the rules into the system. Which worker may claim which task is set by department, jobs move through stages as tasks are completed, and access is controlled by role. A new starter learns the process from the screens rather than from a colleague's memory.

What moving across involves

  • Setup. A 12-step wizard covers company details, your extrusion system suppliers (which loads their product, colour, glass and hardware catalogue), glass and other suppliers, branches, departments and positions. Plan on around an hour.
  • People and templates. Add employees and kiosk PINs, then tailor your document templates.
  • Customers. Import your customer list from a CSV file, on any plan, or add customers as you quote them.
  • Existing quotes. The Quote Importer can bring in estimates from your estimating software, and Customer Merge tidies duplicates.
  • Big histories. FSM Support can scope a one-off migration. Pricing depends on the volume and shape of the data.
  • The first week. Take one real opportunity through quote, job and production in week one.

Expect some discipline: time only reaches jobs if staff allocate it.

When a spreadsheet is enough

A spreadsheet is usually enough when:

  • one person quotes, orders and invoices, and remembers every job;
  • you run a handful of jobs at a time with few variations;
  • you do not need job-by-job labour cost, or a finished job's margin is clear without it;
  • nobody else needs to see the status of a job.

Consider a change when two people edit the same quote, you only learn a job's cost after it is finished, a variation went unbilled, or you cannot say where a job is without asking someone.

FAQ

Can I try FSManager before I commit?

Yes. There is a short video and interactive demo at /demo. The Lite plan also starts with a 14-day free trial.

Can I get my data back out?

Yes. On cancelling you can request a one-off CSV export of customers, contacts, opportunities, quotes and jobs. Cancellation takes 30 days' notice, and your data is kept for 90 days after that.

Can I keep using Excel for analysis?

Yes. Reports and data views export to Excel, so ad-hoc analysis can carry on in a spreadsheet. The Full plan and above also include a REST API for connecting other systems.

Do I need to import all my old jobs?

No. Import your customers from CSV, or add them as you quote, and start new work in FSManager. FSM Support can migrate a large history for you if you need it.

See it for yourself

Watch the short video or open the interactive demo at /demo, then compare plans at FSManager pricing. Lite, Full and Pro are priced by team size.