The original description
« I'm a drywall contractor with two employees and about ten active job sites. Each site has a client, an address, a quote amount and a status: preparing, in progress, waiting on client, done, invoiced. I log work days with everyone's hours, and the materials used. I want to see what's in progress, what's dragging, and this month's billable total. »
The plan validated before generation
The description is turned into a plan you review before generating. For ChantierClair: four entities — Project, Client, Work day, Material used — linked as the pitch says: a project belongs to a client, work days and materials attach to a project.
The five statuses used in the text (preparing, in progress, waiting on client, done, invoiced) are carried into the plan as written, and will become the application's badges and filters. The announced indicators — active projects, hours this month, billable amount — appear in the plan before anything is generated.
- Entities: Project, Client, Work day, Material used
- Relations: project → client; work day → project; material → project
- Statuses: preparing, in progress, waiting on client, done, invoiced
- Indicators: active projects, hours this month, billable amount
Navigation: projects first
The sidebar lists the sections: Dashboard, Projects, Clients, Work days, Materials. The project list is the central screen: each row shows the project name, the client, the address, the quote amount in currency format and the status as a coloured badge — “Waiting on client” doesn't blend into “In progress”.
The status filter does the Monday-morning sorting: one click to see only active work, another to isolate the “Done” projects not yet invoiced. Search by name or client, sort by amount or date: the list replaces the binder, not the other way round.
The project record, with days and materials
The record for “Perrin House — Extension” gathers what used to live in three places: the project's details (clickable client, address, €18,400 quote, status), then, below, two linked tables — dated work days with each employee's hours, and materials used with quantities.
The history reads top to bottom like a site diary: at a glance you see the job started June 3, that 74 hours have gone into it, and what was installed. The relational database attaches everything to the right project — nothing to copy over.
Entering a work day
The “New work day” form is quick, because nobody writes a report at the depot at 7 pm: the project is picked from a dropdown, the date is pre-filled, hours are numeric fields, and a note field holds what matters (“rails done, boarding tomorrow”).
One entry feeds everything else: the project record, the month's hour total on the dashboard. Entered once, in the right place.
The dashboard: the owner's questions, in numbers
The dashboard answers the pitch's questions: how many projects are in progress, how many are waiting on the client (the ones that drag), total hours worked this month, and the billable amount — the sum of quotes for finished, not-yet-invoiced projects.
A breakdown of projects by status completes the tiles: the shape of the order book reads in one look. All these numbers are computed on the database at display time — the billable amount moves the moment a project switches to “Done”.
Demo data: a plausible business
ChantierClair ships with several months of simulated activity: a dozen credibly named projects (“Dubois Facade Renovation”, “Attic — Lime Tree Road”), spread across all five statuses, returning clients, work days from March to June and consistent material usage.
You judge the tool on full screens: the filter has something to filter, the dashboard shows believable amounts. The demo data is then cleared. The application runs at its dedicated URL, readable from a phone on site, and the full source code exports (ZIP, GitHub).