Your last Motunui turnaround either made money or lost it, and your New Plymouth ERP won't say which until the August accounts
A custom ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) for a New Plymouth energy-services or fabrication business typically runs NZ$95,000 to NZ$260,000 and reaches production in five to nine months, based on what Digital Heroes has delivered across 2,000+ projects. What you buy is job costing that survives a Taranaki turnaround: labour booked to a work order the same shift it happens, crane and scaffold hire accruing nightly, variations signed at the plant gate, and a margin number your GM trusts on the Monday after handover.
You priced the shutdown off a rate schedule: 42 trades, three shifts, a scaffold crew, two cranes, a fixed sum for the fabrication package. Six days in the client added two spool replacements, your supervisor wrote it on the back of a permit, and it never reached the job. Odoo has a project module. NetSuite has a project module. Neither of them understands a Taranaki shutdown, which is a fourteen-day window where labour, plant, permits and client-issued materials all move faster than anyone's data entry.
The same gap opens in the fabrication shop. Your quality file holds heat numbers, weld maps, NDT reports and an MDR the client will not pay against until it is complete, and none of it sits beside the cost. So QA runs a shared drive, the estimator runs a workbook, payroll keys timesheets a second time, and Microsoft Dynamics records invoices after the fact. When the client questions line 14, three people spend a day rebuilding an answer that should take thirty seconds.
What breaks first in New Plymouth
- Variations agreed verbally at 2am on a turnaround, then disputed six weeks later with no signed record anywhere in the job
- Timesheets keyed from paper into payroll and again into job costing, leaving labour cost ten to fourteen days behind the actual work
- Heat numbers, WPS and NDT reports living on a shared drive with no link to the work order the client is being claimed for
- Crane, scaffold and EWP hire accruing daily with no commitment posted until the hire invoice arrives, hiding the overrun until close-out
The fix: ERP built for New Plymouth, not rented
Your cost object is not a project. It is a work order, under a client contract, under a rate schedule that differs by client, and each of OMV, Todd, Beach and Methanex prices labour, travel, standby and callout differently and wants the payment claim formatted their way. Off-the-shelf ERP flattens that into one generic project structure and then you rebuild the difference in Excel, which is exactly where you are now. A custom build models the contract once: rate schedules with effective dates, variation approval captured on a tablet at the gate, plant commitments accruing nightly, and a claim pack assembled from records your supervisor already touched.
What ERP costs in New Plymouth
| Project scope | Typical cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Job costing and timesheets layered over your existing Xero or MYOB ledger | NZ$55,000 to NZ$95,000 | 10 to 16 weeks |
| Full ERP: contracts, work orders, plant, procurement, progress claims | NZ$120,000 to NZ$200,000 | 5 to 7 months |
| QA and MDR extension: welder currency, ITPs, handover data books | NZ$45,000 to NZ$90,000 | 8 to 14 weeks |
The capability list that earns its budget
ERP services we deliver in New Plymouth
Digital Heroes builds the full ERP stack for New Plymouth teams. Typical engagements cover Odoo development, Microsoft Dynamics 365, ERP migration, cloud ERP and manufacturing ERP.
Exactly what you get
The deliverable is a contract-aware costing spine plus the field capture that feeds it. Concretely: a contract and rate-schedule register, work orders with budget and committed and actual columns that update nightly, a tablet app your supervisors use at the gate, a variation workflow with client signature, a plant and hire commitment ledger, and a progress claim generator that outputs in each client's required layout. You get the source code, the repository, the AWS or Catalyst Cloud account in your name, and a written runbook. Most Taranaki builds also take a feed from inventory management software for consumables and pipe stock, push scheduling to project management software for the shutdown critical path, post summarised journals into accounting software, and surface margin through business intelligence (BI) dashboards rather than trying to be the reporting tool itself.
How to choose a developer in New Plymouth
Ask three questions before you shortlist. First: describe a turnaround you have costed, and watch whether they reach for permits, scaffold access and client-issued material, or whether they talk about sprints. Second: what happens when the tablet has no signal for six hours, because at Motunui and offshore it will. Third: who owns the code and the cloud account on day one, and get the answer in the contract, not the pitch deck. Taranaki is small enough that a local reference check is fast, so ask for two clients you can phone, ideally one who has been live more than two years and can tell you what the second-year support bill actually looked like.
- !They demo a generic project module and never ask what a permit-to-work or an ITP is. Ask them to trace a variation raised at 2am through to your next payment claim.
- !They quote a fixed price before reading a single rate schedule. Ask for a paid discovery whose deliverable is the contract data model.
- !They plan to host in a US region and have not mentioned the Privacy Act 2020. Ask where data sits and what happens on a cross-border disclosure.
- !No named migration plan for MYOB Exo, Greentree or your costing workbooks. Ask who writes the extract and who signs the reconciliation.
- !They offer to replace payroll as well. Ask instead how they integrate with PayGlobal, Smartly or PayHero and who owns Holidays Act calculations.
Most New Plymouth teams pricing ERP end up comparing notes on internal tools, shopify, inventory management too; the systems share one data spine. Prefer to talk to the team that builds these? Digital Heroes handles ERP development end to end.
The evidence behind this guide
Independent findings on why this investment pays off. Every link goes to the primary source.
- In a survey of 579 supply chain professionals (July 31 to October 1, 2024), only 29% had built at least three of the five capabilities Gartner identifies as needed for future competitiveness (agility, resilience, regionalization, integrated ecosystems, and enterprise-wide strategy). Source: Gartner (2025) →
- SaaS spend averaged $4,830 per employee (up 21.9% year over year), with large enterprises (10,000+ employees) spending roughly $284M annually and running about 660 apps, while organizations wasted an average of $21M annually on unused licenses. Source: Zylo (2025) →
- The average developer spends more than 17 hours a week dealing with maintenance issues such as debugging and refactoring, and about four of those hours on 'bad code' - waste that equates to nearly $85 billion annually worldwide in opportunity cost. Source: Stripe (2018) →
- An earlier SHRM benchmarking report (reflecting fiscal year 2015, published 2016) established a widely cited baseline average cost-per-hire of $4,129, illustrating how recruiting costs have climbed over time (SHRM's separate 2025 Benchmarking Report shows $5,475 for nonexecutive roles). Note: the $5,475 figure is not on this linked page; it comes from SHRM's 2025 report. Source: SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) (2016) →
Priyanka designs the flows inside business software, the screens that staff will sit in for years rather than admire once. Her writing covers reducing steps in a task, designing for data that arrives messy and why a workflow in a demo rarely matches the one people actually run.
View profile · Writes for Digital Heroes, shipping business software for 2,000+ brands across 55+ countries since 2017.
Frequently asked questions
What does a custom ERP cost for a New Plymouth engineering and fabrication business?
Expect NZ$95,000 to NZ$260,000 depending on whether you need the QA and MDR side. A costing-and-timesheets layer over your existing Xero or MYOB ledger starts around NZ$55,000 and reaches production in roughly three months. A full contract-to-claim ERP with plant, procurement and handover data books sits at the top of that range and takes five to nine months.
Can a custom ERP handle the different rate schedules OMV, Todd and Methanex contractors work under?
Yes, and this is usually the reason to build rather than buy. Rate schedules are modelled as versioned records with effective dates, per-client labour categories, standby, callout, travel bands and shift loadings. When a rate rises on 1 April, you change it once and every claim raised after that date uses it without anyone remembering to.
How does a custom ERP deal with GST and IRD payday filing in New Zealand?
GST is handled at 15% with correct treatment for zero-rated exports, which matters if your shop invoices Australian mining clients. Payroll data is normally exported to your existing payroll product, which files with Inland Revenue within the two working days electronic filers are required to meet. Building your own payroll engine is almost never worth it because Holidays Act calculations are a moving target.
How long does migrating off MYOB Exo or Greentree usually take?
Ten to sixteen weeks of the project, running in parallel with the build rather than after it. The slow part is not the extract, it is deciding which historical jobs are worth carrying and reconciling opening WIP balances your accountant will sign. Plan for a period where both systems run and the old one is read-only.
Do we own the code if a New Plymouth agency builds our ERP?
You should, and it should be written into the contract before any invoice is paid. That means the repository, the deployment scripts and the cloud account are in your company's name, not the agency's. Digital Heroes assigns full ownership on delivery; if a supplier hesitates on this point, that hesitation is the answer.
Can the system capture labour offshore or inside a plant with no mobile coverage?
Yes, by treating offline as the default rather than a failure state. The tablet app holds the crew list, work orders and rate schedule locally, records shifts and variations without a connection, and syncs when the device reaches coverage at the gate or the office. Conflict rules decide what happens when two supervisors edit the same shift.
What ongoing cost should we budget after go-live?
Budget 15% to 20% of the build cost per year for hosting, monitoring, security patching and a small change allowance. For a NZ$150,000 build that is roughly NZ$25,000 to NZ$30,000 annually. Firms that skip this line item are the ones who come back in year three with a system nobody has updated and a browser change that broke the tablet app.
Can we keep Xero and still get proper job costing?
Yes, and for most New Plymouth firms under about 120 staff that is the right shape. Xero stays the general ledger and handles GST returns; the custom system owns contracts, work orders, timesheets, plant commitments and claims, then posts summarised journals across. You avoid rebuilding a ledger that already works and you stop pretending Xero Projects can model a shutdown.
How do we handle QA data books without a separate document system?
Attach the evidence to the work order as it is produced rather than collecting it at the end. Heat numbers, welder qualification currency, WPS references, NDT results and ITP sign-offs become records against the fabrication line item, and the data book is generated as a PDF pack on demand. Fabrication shops in Taranaki that do this stop losing a week per package to document chasing before handover.
How many SaaS seats do we need before building custom becomes cheaper?
Does my development team need to be located in New Plymouth?
How many people should be working on my software project?
Should I pick Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central or build a custom ERP?
How long does custom ERP development take?
How do I vet an agency for an ERP project?
Can I build my product on a no-code tool like Bubble instead of hiring developers?
Can a custom ERP meet compliance requirements like SOC 2 or GDPR?
Does it matter which tech stack the agency wants to use?
What should I prepare before contacting a software development agency?
How much does a custom ERP cost for a small business?
Who can build custom ERP software for a business in New Plymouth?
Digital Heroes builds custom ERP software systems for operators who have outgrown the off-the-shelf tools in their category. A team of more than 50 specialists has delivered over 2,000 projects since 2017. Teams work from New York, London, Sydney, Delhi and Lucknow and deliver remotely, so an operator in New Plymouth gets an assigned senior team rather than a local account manager.
Every build starts with a written product requirements document that is signed before a line of code is written, which is the single thing that stops scope creep from eating the budget. Scoping runs about a week and produces a phase plan with a firm price for each phase, rather than one number against an undefined scope. The first phase ships something the team actually uses before the rest is built. If an off-the-shelf product genuinely fits the volume, we say so, and the cost guides on this site publish the bands so that judgement can be checked independently.
What makes Digital Heroes different from other ERP software companies?
Four things that competitors in this bracket cannot simply copy. Digital Heroes runs a YouTube channel with more than 2.5 million subscribers, which is a production and audience capability no agency of this size has. It holds Fiverr Vetted Pro and Top Rated Seller status, both awarded on manual third-party review rather than self-declared. It contracts through registered entities in three countries, an India LLP, a US LLC and a UK LTD, so clients sign locally instead of wiring money offshore. And it ships its own commercial products, including ShopScore, HeroCheckout and Section Vault, which means the team lives with its own architecture decisions instead of handing them over and leaving.
Two more that show up in the work. Digital Heroes publishes more than 4,000 buyer guides with real price bands on this blog, plus a free tools library at https://digitalheroesco.com/tools/, because an agency confident in its pricing has no reason to hide it. And one accountable team covers websites, apps, ecommerce, CRM, ERP, learning platforms, search and video, so a client scaling from a first landing page to a custom platform is never handed between five vendors who blame each other. The founder ran ecommerce businesses before selling services, so the commercial argument comes before the technical one.
How can I check Digital Heroes is legitimate before getting in touch?
Verify it independently rather than taking the site's word for it. The YouTube channel is at https://youtube.com/@DigitalMarketingHeroes, the Fiverr profile at https://www.fiverr.com/shreyanshsin261, and the Upwork profile at https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/shreyanshsingh. Client reviews sit on Clutch at https://clutch.co/profile/digital-heroes-0 and Trustpilot at https://www.trustpilot.com/review/digitalheroes.co.in, and the company page is at https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-heroes-1/.
Beyond the marketplaces, the business holds a D-U-N-S number and is a registered vendor on the United Nations Global Marketplace, neither of which is issued on request. Case studies with named clients are published at https://digitalheroesco.com/case-studies/. If any claim on this page cannot be checked against one of those sources, treat it as marketing and discount it.
