Know what your
work costs.

Costline records labour and materials against the cost centres, activities and people that used them — at the rates that applied on the day of the work. Past entries don’t change when rates do.

Built around your operation · personal onboarding · talk to a human

Append-only historyAs-of-the-day ratesRole-based accessYour data stays yours
app.costline.co.za/dashboard
Total cost · this period
R1,148,600
Live · 4 cost centres
Cost by centre
Period to date
Riverside SiteR412,800
Workshop — Line 2R318,400
North OperationsR264,900
Project MeridianR152,500
Split
Labour58%
Materials42%
Avg / unitR9,840
The problem

Costing after the fact
never quite adds up.

Most operations only learn what the work cost once the season is done — from a spreadsheet that has been overwritten so many times the history is gone. Costline takes the opposite approach.

The spreadsheet way
  • Rates and prices move through the season, but the spreadsheet only holds today's number.
  • Update one rate and last year's totals quietly change with it.
  • Costs live in one person's workbook — no versions, no trail.
  • By the time the numbers reconcile, the season is already over.
The Costline way
  • Every log stores the rate that applied on its own work date.
  • A rate change is a new dated version, never an overwrite. History holds.
  • Costs land on the cost centre, activity and person that created them.
  • You see where the money went while you can still do something about it.
Who it’s for

One engine, whatever
you’re costing.

You name the cost centres, rate types, activities and materials. Costline just keeps the arithmetic — and the history — honest.

Farms & estates

Blocks, orchards and camps, priced by hectare and by activity.

Contractors & sites

Crews and plant costed against the site and job that used them.

Workshops & production

Labour and materials tracked down each line and work order.

Project teams

Time and spend recorded against the deliverable that consumed it.

From the product

Rates are versioned.
Logs keep theirs.

These are the two screens that make it work: rate changes are added as dated versions, and every log entry stores the amount that was resolved when it was recorded.

Standard Rate
General labour • per hour
Add new version
Version history (newest first)
R52.00per hourCurrent
from 1 Jun 2026
R48.50per hour
from 1 Jan 2026
R45.00per hour
from 1 Mar 2025

Updating a rate adds a version with an effective date. Earlier versions stay.

Record labour
Work date: 14 May 2026 · L. Dube · Pruning · 6.0 h
Rate that will be locked in
R48.50 / hour
As of 14 May 2026
Total for this entry
R291.00
This exact amount is permanently stored with the log. Future rate changes will not affect it.

The resolved rate and total are stored on the log itself, permanently.

How it works

Three steps, no ceremony.

01
Set up your operation

Pick your industry, then name your cost centres, people, rate types, activities and materials. Most teams are set up in under 15 minutes.

02
Log the day's work

Record time and materials against the work that used them. Rates and prices resolve automatically, as they stood on the day of the work.

03
Read the reports

Cost per centre, labour against materials, trends over time — built from the amounts stored on each log.

Under the hood
Versioned rates & prices

A rate change is a new version with an effective date, not an edit. Past logs keep the rate that applied on their work date.

Costing at the source

Hours and materials are logged against the cost centre, activity and person that used them — that's where the cost lands.

Your structure, your words

Cost centres, rate types, activities and materials are all defined by you. Works for farms, sites, workshops and project teams.

Reports from stored costs

Reports aggregate the amounts stored on each log — they are never recalculated from today's rates.

The payoff

The questions it answers.

Reports are built from the amounts stored on each log, so the answers hold up to scrutiny — this period and every one before it.

What did this block cost per hectare?

Every cost centre carries its area, so totals resolve straight to a cost-per-hectare you can compare across the farm.

R13,463
/ ha · Block 3
Labour or materials — where's the money?

Each period splits into labour against inputs, so you can see which side of the operation is carrying the cost.

58 / 42
labour · materials
How are costs moving season to season?

Because the amounts are stored on each log, trends are read from history — never re-priced at today's rates.

↑ 6.4%
vs last season
A worked example

One pruning day,
two rate changes later.

On 14 May 2026, a crew pruned Block 3. The standard labour rate that day was R48.50/hour, and that’s the figure Costline locked onto every entry as it was recorded.

In June the rate rose to R52.00. In the spreadsheet world, May’s totals would have jumped too. In Costline they didn’t move — the May entries still read R48.50, because that’s what applied on the day the work happened.

Rooikloof Estate is our demonstration farm — the same numbers you can log into and see for yourself.

Block 3 · Pruning · 14 May
Recorded
Rate locked on the dayR48.50 / h
Current rate (from 1 Jun)R52.00 / h
Hours logged6.0 h
Stored total for this entryR291.00
The June increase never touches this figure. History stays true.
Security & trust

Held properly, by design.

The integrity that protects your history is the same discipline we bring to your data as a whole.

Data in the EU

Hosted in eu-central-1 on Supabase, with a straight answer for POPIA and data-residency questions.

Tenant isolation

Row-level security scopes every read and write to your organisation — enforced in the database, not just the app.

Role-based access

Owner, manager, foreman and viewer roles, so people see and change only what they should.

Append-only history

Rate and price changes are versioned with immutability triggers. The past is kept, not rewritten.

Pricing

Priced per operation,
set up with you.

Costline is an annual plan sized to your operation — how many cost centres, how many people, how much you’re logging. We set you up personally and bring your history across. No credit-card wall, no trial clock.

Get in touch
Every plan includes
  • Your full structure — cost centres, rate types, activities and materials
  • Personal onboarding and import of your existing history
  • Every role for your team, at no per-seat surprise
  • Versioned rates, snapshotted logs and the reports built on them
Questions

Straight answers.

Can I change a rate without breaking old costs?

Yes — that's the whole point. Updating a rate adds a new version with an effective date. Every log already recorded keeps the rate that applied on its own work date, permanently.

I've been costing in spreadsheets. Can I bring that across?

During onboarding we help you import your existing structure and history so you're not starting from an empty sheet. You keep what you've built; it just stops being fragile.

Do I need to be technical to run it?

No. You name your cost centres, people and activities in plain language, then log the day's work. Most teams are set up in under fifteen minutes.

Where is my data stored?

In the EU (eu-central-1), isolated to your organisation by row-level security in the database. We're happy to give a straight answer on POPIA and data residency.

Is there a free trial?

No self-serve trial. Costline is sold with hands-on setup — we onboard you personally, import your history, and you decide once you can see it working on your own operation.

Try it on your own operation.

Set up your cost centres and log a day’s work — you’ll know within an afternoon whether it fits.

Get in touch

We’ll set you up personally.