App & in-house software development
So we can fix
what annoys us on site
We are a contractor, not a software company. We build our own app because off-the-shelf software did not fit the way we work.
Jobs in a spreadsheet, photos on a phone, estimates in another package, messages in a chat app. As that piles up, so does the time spent asking "where is the before photo for that unit?" — time that goes nowhere near the actual work.
What we wanted was all of it in one place, reachable one-handed from site. We could not find it, so we started building it. That is anken.ai.
What we build — anken.ai
A business app for small construction and interior firms and the trades. We use it on our own jobs every day and fix it as we go. The thing we care about most: nobody — not the main contractor, not the client — has to change how they work.
- Inbox
- Drop in a request in whatever form it arrived — chat message, email, a photo of a handwritten note — and a draft job, schedule, task list and materials list is put together. Nobody has to change how they contact us.
- Job sheet
- Scope, tasks, checklist, materials and site notes on one page per job. It prints, and it shares with subcontractors through a link that needs no login — with prices hidden.
- Before-and-after photos
- Photos kept by property and by stage. When extra work is needed, we send the photo from that moment and ask before starting.
- Estimate → order → invoice
- Build the line items, issue the estimate, convert it to an order in one click, and hand quotes, delivery notes, invoices and purchase orders on to the accounting package (freee).
- Schedule, site list, ordering
- Who is on which job, and whether the materials have arrived. Work and materials sit on the same list, and orders go out from there.
- Cost and margin
- Revenue and cost per job, with an estimate of fuel and toll costs to site added on. It exists so we stop guessing.
- AI assistant
- "What is on tomorrow?" "Anything still uninvoiced?" Ask it in the app or over chat, and it answers — and books the entry for you.
Who builds it
It is built by someone who works on site. Days on the tools, and the app after that.
Which means the awkward parts get noticed first-hand. "You cannot press that with gloves on." "You cannot read that screen from a stepladder." Being able to fix it the same day is the real advantage of not outsourcing.
There is a cost to that too. There are few of us, so development only moves so fast. There is always more we want to build than we can.
What it is built with
In case it is useful to anyone thinking about the same thing, here is the stack.
- Interface
- React + TypeScript. The web and desktop versions share the same code.
- Database & auth
- Supabase (PostgreSQL). It lets a small company start without running its own server.
- Desktop
- Tauri, so it ships as a Mac and Windows app.
- Server-side work
- Edge Functions, for talking to outside services and for the parts we hand to AI.
Making it available
Our first priority is using it hard on our own jobs. Beyond that, we are preparing to make anken.ai available to construction and interior firms and trades with the same problem.
We cannot yet give a date or a price. When they are settled, we will say so here and in OS Notes.
We do not take on general contract development work — building our own system is the focus. If you have something in mind, start a chat and tell us what it is.