Contracts Coordinator (Estimating & Accounts) — NZ Renovation Company

About us

We are Refresh Renovations Rodney, a residential renovation company north of Auckland, New Zealand. We design, manage and build kitchens, bathrooms, extensions and full home renovations, and we are known locally for projects that are properly planned and properly run.

Small close knit team plus our trades, growing steadily and ready to welcome our next team member.

The role

This is a new role, and it exists because we are growing.

We are taking on more projects each year and bigger ones. The commercial side of a build, pricing it, costing it, controlling the cost and pricing the changes, has been shared between our directors up to now. It has outgrown that. We want one person who owns it end to end.

From the moment a design is signed off through to the last variation, the numbers on that project are yours.

You will:

• Send scopes of work out to our trades for pricing, and chase every quote until it lands
• Check each quote against the scope and tell us what has been left out
• Build the project costing in our construction software
• Put the client proposal together once our director has set the margin
• Raise purchase orders and track cost against budget on every live job
• Price variations when the job changes, and make sure none are missed
• Work out what we can claim each month
• Own the accounting: supplier bills coded to the right job, bank reconciliations, accounts payable, month end,

We have good systems and we keep investing in them. Our construction platform already tracks costings, variations and purchase orders across every job, and we are building the reporting on top of it. So this is not a spreadsheet building job. Your work is what the systems cannot do: picking up the phone to a trade who has not come back, and spotting what a quote is missing.

Who we are looking for

Above everything else, someone who genuinely likes numbers. Not someone who puts up with them. Someone who reconciles a thing because it is bugging them.

You are the person who spots what everyone else missed. One quote is priced excluding GST and the other two include it. A bill has been coded to the wrong job. A variation was signed in March and never invoiced. You see those.

And you have judgement. On a Friday you have noticed twelve things, and you know which three actually matter. You tell us those three.

That combination is rare and it is the whole job.

You need

• Real accounting capability. You can own bills, reconciliations, payables, month end and GST workings without supervision
• Construction job costing experience
• The ability to read a scope of works against a quote and see what is missing
• Willingness to ring a supplier and push for a price. This is not an email only role
• Xero experience, and the ability to pick up new software fast. We use Wunderbuild. If you have used Buildxact, Buildertrend or similar you will be at home
• Enough organisation to hold a chase list without being chased yourself
• Clear written English
• Availability in New Zealand business hours

Nice to have

• You have worked for an Australian or New Zealand residential builder. Contracts Administrator and Estimator are known roles there and this will look familiar
• Renovation rather than new build
• You have run a pricing process end to end, not just entered data

This is not

• A legal or procurement contracts role. We are not managing contract documents, we are pricing building work
• Only a bookkeeping role. The accounting is real and it is yours, but so is the pricing, and the pricing is the bigger half

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What we pay

NZD 2,400 per month to start (about USD 1,420), paid directly to you with no agency taking a cut.

We review at three months against clear criteria that go in your agreement, so you know exactly what you are working toward rather than hoping for a conversation. The role grows from there, and we would rather walk you through that properly than put a ladder in a job advert.

Also

• Full time, permanent, working from home
• New Zealand hours
• Salary is agreed and paid in New Zealand dollars. The USD figure is a guide, so the exact USD amount moves a little with the exchange rate. We review pay annually
• A small team where you talk to the owners every day, not a call centre

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Before you apply

We are hiring someone who catches what other people miss. So rather than ask whether you are detail oriented, we would rather see it.

Three short things. None should take more than a couple of minutes.

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One. Three trades have quoted the same bathroom. New Zealand GST is 15 percent, and all figures are New Zealand dollars.

> Trade A — $4,200, including GST
> Trade B — $3,750, plus GST
> Trade C — $4,100, including GST

Which one is cheapest, and which is the most expensive? Show us how you got there.

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Two. Here is a costing for that same bathroom.

> Plumbing ............ $6,580
> Electrical .......... $2,340
> Tiling .............. $4,120
> Waterproofing ....... $890
> Total ............. $14,930

Something is wrong with it. Tell us what, and what the number should be.

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Three. Tell us about something you noticed at work and deliberately did not raise.

Two or three sentences. We are interested in why you left it alone.

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How to apply

Send your CV and your answers to the three questions above.

Use this exact subject line

> Contracts Coordinator — [the amount that total is out by]

So if you think the total is out by four hundred dollars, your subject line is "Contracts Coordinator — 400".

We read applications with the correct subject line first. Applications with no answers will not be read at all.

Shortlisted applicants will be sent a short practical exercise before we set up an interview.