Ochanti user guide

Open the project list

From the bottom bar — which has only three tabs: Home, Projects, Tools.

Fill in the site details

Project name, city, and "total budget". The city is not cosmetic: the app uses it to pull the weather into your daily report automatically.

Save — and the project dashboard opens

At the top is the spending card: total spent, which day of the site's life you are on, the daily average, and how many entries were made this week. That same card is where you later export the project report as a PDF.

Below it, six cards open the sections of the project: Expenses · Materials · Documents · Workers · Photo gallery · Suppliers.

Add a worker

Open the project, then the "Workers" card, and tap the + button at the bottom (or "Add worker" if the list is empty).

Enter the name, phone number and trade. Ten trades are ready, each with its own illustration: mason, plumber, electrician, painter, carpenter, steel fixer, plasterer, tiler, aluminium fitter and labourer.

Choose the pay type — the field that matters most

• "Daily": you enter the daily rate. They are paid on Saturday according to the days actually worked.
• "Monthly": you enter the monthly salary and the day of the month it is paid. No weekly amount is calculated for them.

Record attendance every day

Fastest route: tap "Attendance" on the home screen — it opens the workers tab of your active project directly.

Each worker has three states: "present", "half day", "absent". A half day counts as 0.5 in the pay calculation. There is no save button — it is recorded instantly.

Record advances and payments

Tap a worker's name to open their page. There is an "Add transaction" button with four types:

• Payment — cash you handed to the worker.
• Advance — deducted from what they are owed.
• Deduction — a penalty or damage.
• Bonus — counted as paid, not added to the outstanding amount.

At the top of their page you see their balance: "owed" if you still owe them money, or "overpaid" if you have paid more than they worked.

Open this week's sheet

Read the four numbers

"Days worked" · "Present" · "Advances and paid" · "Net to pay". The net automatically deducts every advance and payment you handed over during the week, so nothing is paid twice.

The sheet is split into "daily workers" and "monthly workers". For monthly workers only their attendance days and salary date are shown, with no weekly amount.

Export it and hand it over

"Export payroll PDF" gives you a sheet ready to print or send. Move between weeks with "previous week" and "next week".

The fast way: photograph the note

The camera opens straight onto your active project. Photograph the supplier's invoice or delivery note and the app reads it, extracting the supplier, the date, and every material with its quantity, unit and price.

A review screen appears before anything is saved: check each line, correct it, add one with "Add another line" or delete it. Incomplete lines are flagged for you. Then you save, and all the materials are recorded at once, with the supplier.

The manual way

Tap +, then type the material name — the app suggests from a catalogue of 34 ready materials so naming stays consistent across your team and your projects. Enter the quantity, unit, unit price and supplier name. Materials are grouped by day in the list.

Track each supplier's balance

Typing a supplier name in the material form registers them automatically, and the field suggests existing names so the same supplier never appears three different ways — one record, one balance.

Open a supplier to see the total, the number of materials, the last order, and buttons to call, message or map them. To settle a debt: select the unpaid items (or "select all") then tap "Paid" — and if you paid on another day, use "Paid on a different date?". The "Export PDF" button gives you their statement.

Watch your prices over time

Or tap any material inside your project. You see that material's price history across all your purchases and all your suppliers, separated by unit (bag, kg, m³…) so a kilo price is never compared with a bag price.

Inside the project

Open "Overview" (the row above the six cards) to see a pie chart splitting your spending — workers, materials, other expenses — against the budget. Tap any slice to see its value and its share.

To add an expense: the "Expenses" card, then +. The available categories are transport, fuel, equipment, water and electricity, food, permits, subcontracting, insurance, professional fees, and other.

Across all your projects

One screen with the state of your business: net balance, what clients owe you and what you owe, client debt, worker dues, worker overpayments, and supplier debt. This screen is for the account owner only — supervisors never see it.

Money alerts

They reach you with no internet and no account:

• when a project reaches 80% of its budget;
• when the budget is exceeded;
• when a monthly salary date is approaching;
• when a material is cheaper at a supplier you already use;
• the Saturday reminder about worker dues.

Set up your letterhead once

Your name, company name, phone, email, address and city, and your legal details. They are printed automatically at the top of every invoice, quote and purchase order — you never type them again.

The full project report

Open the project, then tap the PDF export button inside the spending card at the top of the dashboard. The app asks which language you want — Arabic, Français or English — then creates the file and opens WhatsApp or any other sharing app directly.

The daily report

Its sections: work done · attendance · materials received today · today's expenses · notes and issues · visitors and inspections · today's photos · weather and temperature · approval and signature. Attendance, materials and expenses fill themselves in from your entries, and the weather is pulled from the project's city.

• It saves itself while you write, so nothing is lost if you leave the screen or the app closes.
• "AI suggestion" drafts it from the day's data if you want a quick start.
• You can attach up to 12 photos, and sign with your finger on the screen.
• To open an earlier day's report, use the date picker at the top of the screen.

Client invoices and documents

Five tabs: all documents · invoices · receipts · quotes · purchase orders.

• "Client invoice" — a formal invoice with VAT.
• "Receipt" — a simple receipt without VAT.
• "Quote" — your offer to the client.
• "Purchase order" — your order to the supplier, numbered automatically as BC-YYYY-XXX.

Create your account

The account is entirely optional, but it is what enables three things: sync across your devices, supervisor accounts, and team activity notifications.

Create a supervisor account

Tap + and fill in: the supervisor's name and phone; the projects they manage (one or more — and they will see nothing else); a login name in lowercase letters, digits and underscores, 3 to 32 characters; and a password generated by the app, with ↻ for a new one.

What does a supervisor see?

They see only the projects assigned to them — workers, attendance, materials, suppliers, expenses, daily reports — plus the calculator, material prices and the smart assistant.

They do not see your clients, invoices, quotes, purchase orders, appointments, or the "Debts and receivables" screen. Your accounts stay yours alone.

Follow their activity

Every important action — a payment, an invoice, a deletion, a budget overrun, a daily report — sends you a notification. Routine additions (a worker, a material, an expense, attendance) are logged in the activity list without a chime. Open the list from the notification bell at the top of the home screen; it shows the last 24 hours.

The same team screen is where you manage them: "Edit projects" · "Reset password" · "Disable account" (an immediate block, re-enabled later) · "Delete permanently" (which frees the login name for reuse).

Lock the app

Turn on a four-digit "PIN" and "biometric lock" (fingerprint or face) if your device supports it. After that the code or fingerprint is required every time the app opens, so nobody else sees your accounts.

Where your data is stored

On your phone first. Everything — workers, attendance, materials, suppliers, expenses, reports — works and is saved without internet.

Cloud sync

The "Cloud sync" card shows the status: "all data up to date", or "X changes waiting to upload", or "last sync …". Anything recorded offline stays in a queue and uploads automatically as soon as the connection returns, even if you do not open the app.

Delete your account

At the bottom of the "Account" page choose "Delete account" and type the confirmation word. If you are the account owner, everything is deleted — your projects, their data and every supervisor account. If you are a supervisor, only your own account is deleted. Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone.

Full details on the account deletion page.