Released

One of the biggest worries we hear from business owners is: "If I hand over my phones and inbox, is some corporate office worker going to sound completely clueless to my clients?"

It’s a fair question. The last thing you need is a generic virtual assistant asking a client what "gib-stopping" means or butchering the name of a local supplier.

That's what makes Released the right choice for New Zealand trades businesses. Our team doesn’t just understand the trade industry from a manual. We’ve lived it.

We're local Kiwi admin pros who know the pace, the pressure, and lingo of construction, plumbing, electrical, and roofing. We know how your days get out of whack thanks to a delayed material delivery or a sudden downpour. We know how to talk to a stressed homeowner, a demanding site manager, and a local merchant.

We don't do corporate jargon, and we don't do scripted, robotic replies. We sound like a trusted part of your actual team because that’s exactly what we are. You get the slick, professional back-office structure of a massive company, run by people who actually know their way around a job site.

Where does your time actually go in a week? If you feel like you’re working 70 hours a week but your bank account—and your partner—are both asking where the hell you've been, it’s time to do some quick math.
Let’s look at a typical week for a busy Kiwi owner-operator:

➡️ On the tools / on-site: 35 hours (The work that actually pays the bills)
➡️ Driving between jobs & picking up materials: 10 hours
➡️ Phone tag with suppliers & clients: 5 hours
➡️ Late-night quoting, invoicing, and email clearing: 15+ hours

Suddenly, you’ve clocked a massive week, but nearly a third of it was spent on unbillable grunt work. You’re sacrificing your evenings, your weekends, and time with the kids to be an overqualified, unpaid data entry clerk.
Imagine if you could take that 15+ hours of late-night admin and either:

Turn it into extra billable on-site hours to scale your revenue.
Knock off at 4:00 PM on a Friday and actually enjoy the weekend.

You don't need a longer week. You just need to stop spending your premium time on basic admin.

Most tech consultants understand software. They know the buttons to click. But they don't understand the intersection of hands-on trades work and administration; fitting the messy and ever-changing moving pieces of a job site into the neat columns of a quote or invoice or the constraints of a schedule.

That’s where we do things differently. For over ten years, Kellie Beaumont and the Released team haven't just looked at the tech. We’ve lived the administration side of the Kiwi trade industry.

When you blend digital heavy lifting with people who actually know how a plumbing, electrical, or building business operates, you get your weekends back. Simple as that.

See how we’re reimagining job management for NZ tradies.

💌 A note from Kellie's desk:

And just like that, it's back to the real world, and Slack Time 2026 is over and done.
This is our 3rd year going to Slack Time, a business retreat/conference in Fiji with our amazing accountants SMYD Accounting / Advisory , and every year it gets better.

From actually being given the time to deep dive into topics like wealth planning and optionality around how and when to exit your business with Jason Topp, to learning more about your specific strengths and how they complement others with Aleisha Coote, these were the 5 days that my brain needed to make the next push.

It's hard to find the time to have these sorts of conversations with your partner, let alone other business owners, so being able to escape to the warmth of Fiji and have these discussions on a beach is definitely a game changer.

My key takeaways:
I love my business, and I want to keep running it for as long as I can, but I can choose what that looks like.
Retirement numbers can be scary, but to be prepared, you need to have had the conversations, run the numbers and made a plan.
Opposite skill sets are often really complementary, and that's what builds a great team.
It's easier to make hard decisions when it's warm!!

Most Kiwi tradies don’t actually have a time problem. You have the exact same 24 hours in a day as the bloke running a 30-man crew down the road.

What you actually have is a task problem.

If you spent today on the tools earning your top billable rate, but tonight you’re sitting at the laptop doing data entry, sorting emails, and chasing invoices... you’re paying yourself premium rates to do basic admin.
You can't scale a business—and you definitely can't enjoy the weekend—if you are the bottleneck for every single quote, receipt, and customer text.

The secret to getting your life back isn't working faster or sleeping less. It’s looking at your task list and asking: "Am I the only person who can do this, or am I just too stubborn to hand it over?"
Get off the admin wheel. Focus on the high-value work that actually builds your business, and leave the rest to the pros.

Paying for Fergus, ServiceM8, or NextMinute but still spending your Sunday nights trapped in a spreadsheet?

It's a pattern for our clients and those who become our clients. They purchase big-name software hoping it’ll magically solve all admin issues. Three months later, they find themselves with three different (and pricey) subscriptions, on top of trusty Xero, and an array of spreadsheets that are doing all kinds of heavy lifting.

Here’s the honest truth: software doesn’t run a business. It's a tool, and one that needs an experienced pilot at the controls.

Having the right tech is only half the battle. To actually get off the tools, skip the late-night data entry, and get back to the weekend BBQ, you need someone who knows what they’re doing at the controls.

We can help you to find the right software AND match you with an award-winning, NZ-based team who already knows your exact software inside out. We bend the tech to fit your actual real-world workflow, tuning your job cards, streamlining client quoting, and setting up automated reminders so the software finally works for you, not the other way around.

Stop paying for powerful tech you aren't exploiting.

Click the link in the comments to book a quick chat with our crew today!

You've probably heard the dreaded question: "Hey mate, while you're here, can you just..."

Suddenly you're looking at an extra hour of labour and a trip to the merchants, but you don't want to sound tight or ruin a good relationship. So, you do it for free and eat the cost.

Our pricing expert Hannah says you don't have to be the bad guy to protect your margins. Next time a client puts you on the spot, use this exact script:

“Yes, absolutely we can do that for you. We’ve kept our initial quoting as tight as possible to keep costs down for you, so this extra bit would come with an additional charge. Are you happy for me to add that on?”

Simple, professional, and zero corporate jargon. If the client knows the original scope and trusts your work, they won't mind paying.

We’ve put together a guide to combatting scope creep so you can keep your business profitable. Read the full post linked in the comments for more from Hannah!

If it’s written on a faded receipt shoved into your cup holder, or scribbled on a piece of cardboard on the dashboard... it’s not making it onto the invoice.

Let’s be honest.
You tell yourself, "I'll remember to add that later."

But by Sunday night? Your brain is fried, you just want to get the bills out, and those "little things" get left behind. You're actively donating your own profit back to the job. Leaving 10% to 15% of your margin on the table hurts.
You shouldn't have to choose between getting paid properly and having a weekend.

We’ve broken down exactly how to stop the leaks and capture every single dollar before it slips through the cracks! Follow the link in the comments to read our blog on pricing and quoting effectively while maintaining your profit margins - and if you need help keeping track, head to released.co.nz to book a 15-minute chat about our expert business support.

Whenever a new piece of tech hits Aotearoa, you can guarantee we jump on it quickly. We test it, trial it, and put it under the pump so you don't have to waste your evenings guessing if it's worth it. Is Wunderbuild actually going to save you time on site, or is it just another monthly fee? We’ve broken down everything you need to know in our latest blog.

Save yourself the headache, head over to the blog to read our full breakdown, or book a quick chat with the team today to see if it’s the right fit for your builds!