Yes — Xero is the right call for most Australian and NZ trades businesses, and we run it across our own. Clean bank feeds, easy BAS/GST, payroll that works, and your accountant already knows it. If you're choosing accounting software, stop deliberating: it's good.
But here's what nobody selling you software says: Xero has never won anyone a job. It counts the money after the work happens. A modern trades business actually runs on three systems, and most tradies only have two of them.
The three-part tradie stack
- Money: Xero. Invoicing, payroll, tax, reporting. The scoreboard.
- Jobs: field-service software like ServiceM8, Tradify or Fergus. Scheduling, job cards, dispatch. The engine room.
- Customers: a CRM. Lead capture, follow-up, reviews, rebooking. The part that decides whether the phone rings — and the part most trades businesses are missing.
Why the missing third costs the most
Without the customer layer, leads hit voicemail and vanish, quotes go unchased, happy customers never get asked for a review, and last year's clients never hear from you again. Xero will faithfully report the revenue you lost — it just can't do anything about it. In our own business, wiring up the customer layer lifted enquiry conversion to 2.1× the year before and automated about $23,400 a year of admin. Those numbers are published in our case studies.
How the three talk to each other
Lead comes in → the CRM catches it, responds instantly and books it. Job gets done → the job system runs the schedule and the job card. Invoice goes out → Xero handles the money. Then the CRM circles back for the review and the rebooking. Each tool doing its one job, connected — that's the whole trick.
So keep Xero. Keep your job software. Then ask the harder question: who's running your customer layer — a system, or your memory at 9pm?
Add the missing third
The Salty CRM is the customer layer — set up for you, working alongside Xero and your job software.