Half Moon Bay Marina has been making waves since its inception, initially as New Zealand’s founding marina in 1970 and now as a world-class marine hub dedicated to supporting the boating community by providing top notch service in a friendly family-oriented setting.

Located in the briny heart of Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf, the marina is owned by charitable trustThe Auckland Maritime Foundation and has recently celebrated becoming the only marina in New Zealand to be awarded the highly coveted 5 Gold Anchor accreditation from the Marina Industries Association.

With the addition of its new North Pier marina in 2021, it now hosts 580 berths, 125 trailer parks and 42 marine services and commercial tenants – all of which are managed with PacsoftNG marina management software. The expansion also included a thorough overhaul of its existing boatyard services, plus the addition of an 85-tonne travel lift and large additional undercover sheds to house up to 18 vessels, making it more important than ever to have time-saving software systems in place.

Half Moon Bay Marina Company Accountant Kylie Hood said PacsoftNG was a complete solution to to run all aspects of the business. The marina has been using the software for well over a decade and is leading the way in ensuring it is used to its full capacity.

“There are multiple software options out there, but it is difficult to find any other marina software that offer all the functionality that Pacsoft’s modules can provide.”

“Over the Covid period, when New Zealanders couldn’t travel, a lot of people invested in boats, creating a surge in demand, especially for bigger berths, so it’s great we can now cater for vessels up to 30m in length,” she said.

Everyone in the 14-strong marina management team, from its hands-on general manager to its dockmaster, uses the versatile software to integrate the marina’s physical and digital infrastructure and make it a smooth sailing ‘smart marina’. Not only does it cater for the marina’s complex accounting requirements, but it also communicates with access control systems and the TallyBee utility monitoring tool to remotely monitor and control electricity
meters at berths.

Kylie said from an accounting perspective, integrating Xero with PacsoftNG had been an “absolute game-changer”, ensuring the marina’s financial integrity and reducing the need for long end of month manual processes.

“We process a large number of invoices and the batch processes, plus the automatic direct debit batches, complete the receipts automatically saving a huge amount of time.

“Our customers also have the ability to access our customer portal to view invoices and also pay their accounts right then and there,” she said.

The convenience of having interactive visuals of both marinas on the main screen in their office is hard to beat. This is made possible by PacsoftNG’s Visual Marina tool, which provides a smart snapshot of every boat in the marina created from the transactions completed on the system, Kylie said.

“We can literally just click on it and know which boat is where – you have 100% accuracy of who’s in the marina and what’s happening.”

Kylie said the marina management team has gone to great lengths to provide everything their tenants and the visitors it welcomes each day might need, including a walkway connecting the marina to Bucklands Beach, a supermarket, gym, day spa, dentist, restaurants and cafes, as well as one of the most advanced marine services centres in New Zealand.

With its charitable trust status, the marina is fortunate to be able to support many local charities, including Coastguard New Zealand, Spirit of Adventure Trust, Motutapu Outdoor Education Camp, and many other local organisations.

Right now, the team at Half Moon Bay Marina are looking forward to the vibrancy the end of year in New Zealand brings. After the heavy rain that washed-out much of New Zealand’s summer last year, Kylie said she was keen to see the marina’s typical summer buzz return in the coming months.

“Everyone’s hoping for a warm sunny summer, I’m used to coming back after Christmas to the marina and seeing it full.”