Village Small Business
Run your business — invoicing, clients, projects — on tools you own. A clear record nothing can quietly change, and nothing a big overseas company can switch off.
Built to protect what an app can't
Anyone can build an app now. What software can't hand you is the ground underneath: who's responsible for your data, where it's kept, what the assistant is allowed to do with it, and whether your records still hold up in ten years. That's what a Village is built on.
Safety built in, not bolted on
Your Village runs inside standing guards that set what the system and its assistant can do: hold a line, check a claim against the record, and make sure real thought goes in before a decision lands. Safety is part of how it works, not a page you click past.
An assistant that works for you, not on you
The assistant runs on our own computers. Your members' words and documents are never sent to a big overseas company's cloud, and never used to train someone else's product.
A record that's yours, and can be proven
Every decision, document and exchange becomes a record you can trust: nothing changes without it showing, it carries where it came from, you can export it whenever you ask, and you can erase it for good — all on ground you control.
Reach out without giving yourself away
Villages connect to one another directly — to share, refer and work together — with no platform owner sitting in the middle. You choose who to connect with and exactly what crosses the line.
A record no one can quietly change
Anyone can promise a record can never be changed. We do something more useful, and easier to check. Every decision is sealed, so if it's ever altered the change shows — and you can check that yourself, offline, against the record’s own signature and its time stamp from an outside authority (Certum, a non-qualified service; a record with no stamp says so, and the request is retried nightly), without an MDSL account. Because a real organisation sometimes has to correct or replace a record, proper changes are written down, signed and added to the trail: the original still stands, and only a quiet, unauthorised change becomes impossible to hide. A record you can correct and still prove beats a promise you can't check.
Features get copied. A safe, provable, connected foundation you own does not — because it isn't something you generate. It's what you're built on.
Your plans, on a record you own
Two things no business app can hand you.
A record you own, and can prove
Every plan, decision and document in your Village becomes a record you own: nothing changes without it showing, you can export it on demand, and it's kept on ground you control — not locked inside someone else's cloud. When it matters who decided what, and when, you can prove it.
Planning, not just storage
Your plans aren't just filed away. Village Small Business talks them through with you — the assistant argues each one from a few angles, you settle and sign off every point, and the full reasoning stays part of the record.
Start today on shared ground that keeps each Village walled off from every other; as your private data grows, you can move to your own separate database — your choice, never a gate.
An assistant for the back office
It reads your own Village's information — and never sends it to anyone else's cloud.
Monday brief
A short weekly note in plain English on your pipeline, invoices and the week ahead — the three things worth your attention first.
Getting paid
A 30-day cash forecast and a list of who's overdue, with polite payment reminders drafted for you to approve. Nothing goes out without you.
Monthly close
A monthly profit-and-loss and a list of things to reconcile, with a plain-English summary. Every figure is worked out in code — the assistant writes the words, never the numbers.
Campaign planner
Busy and quiet seasons drawn from your own sales history, a group of contacts to reach, and draft copy — all set aside for you to approve before anything goes out.
The assistant runs entirely on our own computers, never a big overseas company's cloud. Every figure is worked out in code, and every draft waits for your approval.
Optional extras — design and image tools, and other parts as you need them — come with a capacity upgrade: you pay only for what you use, and it grows with you. Your choice, never a gate.
Everything in Village Community, plus:
All the team tools, plus tools made for running a small business
Tools for running the business
One place instead of five separate subscriptions
💼 Clients
- Contact list with a history of every dealing
- A sales pipeline with six stages and weighted forecasts
- Contact log kept up to date for you
- A client portal with sign-in by emailed link
- A simple health score for each relationship
⏱️ Time tracking & invoicing
- Timer-based time entry linked to projects and clients
- Expense tracking, with receipts read from a photo
- NZ GST (15%) and AU GST (10%) built in
- Export zero-rating under NZ GST Act s 11A(1)(k)
- Invoicing in NZD, AUD, EUR and GBP
- PDF invoices, payment tracking, bank details
📨 E-invoicing, quotes & signing
- Peppol PINT A-NZ e-invoice receiving
- Recurring invoices sent on a schedule
- Quotes and proposals, turned into invoices in a click
- Sealed signatures on documents and agreements
📊 Accounting & Xero
- A financial register with receipts read from a photo
- Tax registrations for more than one country
- Xero sync (opt-in), with the sovereignty trade-offs spelled out
- MYOB, Odoo and ERPNext links planned
- Export to CSV, JSON and PDF, always
- No lock-in — disconnect any time
📋 Projects
- Projects with budgets, rates and team members
- Work with clients, with only the access you allow
- Budget tracking: hours used against hours allowed
- Template projects for work you do again and again
- Time and expenses tied to each project
- A simple profit view per project (money in against cost)
🧑💼 Hiring & onboarding
- Job postings with online application forms
- Track applicants through your hiring steps
- A clear path for settling in new starters
- Review applications and manage their status
👥 HR & compliance (planned)
- Staff profiles with the right level of access
- Leave requests and approvals
- Compliance checklists
- Document templates (contracts, NDAs)
- Reminders for regulatory deadlines
🤖 The assistant
- Meeting summarisation from recordings
- Reads invoices and receipts from a photo
- Flags the urgent messages
- Runs on our own computers — your data never leaves
- Safety checks on every answer
- Never tells you what to do — it lays out options
📊 Business-plan check
- The assistant looks at your plan from a few angles — how it runs, the money, the strategy — and you settle and sign off every point. Your numbers stay exactly what you entered. The plan and the full discussion are kept as a record you can prove.
Everything in Village Community, included:
Add-on: your own database On request
Your own MongoDB database on NZ ground, operated by Catalyst Cloud in Wellington. Your data sits in its own database, not shared with anyone else. Encrypted at rest, backed up daily. Available on request, with a capacity upgrade.
Learn more →A place for your clients
Work with clients instead of chasing them by email
See where a project's at
Clients can see how a job is going without asking. Milestones, files and timelines are there for them. No more "just checking in" emails.
Approve an invoice in one click
Clients approve an invoice and pay in one click. No email attachments, no re-keying, no waiting. Every payment is recorded.
Files in one place
Upload what you need, download what's ready, and see earlier versions. Every file sits with the job it belongs to. Nothing lost in an inbox.
Business tools that keep your data private
Proper tools, on ground you own
No charge per person
Most business software charges for every person you add — each new hire is another fee. Village Small Business is one flat price per Village, with 200 members and 50 GB included and no per-person charge.
On ground you own
Your business data on your own setup, or on our hosting in your part of the world. No lock-in, no data mining, no sudden price rises. You set how long things are kept.
Safety checks on every answer
Every answer from the assistant passes safety, context and accuracy checks before you see it. It never tells you what to do about your business — it lays out the options and the trade-offs, for you and your people to decide.
How the safety checks work →Why Village Small Business?
One joined-up place instead of a pile of separate apps
vs accounting plus a chat app
Time tracked, turned into an invoice, then paid — all in one flow. Conversations sit with the job, not buried in a separate chat app. One sign-in.
vs a project tool on its own
Invoicing, a client portal and ground you own — built in. Not just tracking tasks, but running the business.
vs a customer-management system
Priced for a small shop of two to ten people, with no charge per head. Proper features without the big-company price.
Five subscriptions, or one
A pile of separate subscriptions:
- Accounting software
- A CRM, charged per seat
- Project management
- Team chat
- File storage
- Five bills, five renewal dates, five places your data lives
Village Small Business:
—/month
Everything included, 200 members, 50 GB storage
Connect with the businesses you work with
Set up direct links with suppliers, partners and contractors
📦 Your suppliers
Your main suppliers run their own Village. A link between the two sets up a direct line — video calls for urgent orders, a shared view of a job, and less email back and forth.
🤝 Your partners
Your accountant, your lawyer, your marketing help — each on their own Village, linked to yours. See who's free, coordinate work across a few parties, and keep a clear trail.
🔧 Your contractors
Trades, freelancers, seasonal staff — each can run their own Village and link to yours. Video calls to sort out a site, shared job boards, and a link that carries on from one contract to the next.
Simple, clear pricing
For small teams of 2 to 50 people
Village Small Business
Flat price — no charge per person
- ✓ Everything in Village Community
- ✓ Clients and client portal
- ✓ Time tracking and projects
- ✓ Invoicing and payments
- ✓ 50 GB storage, 2000 video minutes a month
Get started
Set up your Village Small Business today