What this package is
Scan is the package where the app reads text from images on the device itself. Photograph a receipt or a document and the values come back as filled fields, ready to use, with no image ever leaving the phone.
That is not done for novelty. It is done so confidential paperwork never has to travel. Client documents, receipts showing account numbers, identity cards: if the image never leaves the device, it cannot leak in transit and no copy is left sitting on anybody's server.
The package also includes maps and location tracking during work, a web admin console for reading what the app sends in, every file and document prepared for a Play Store submission, and the first 60 days after handover covered.
See it working
Nothing is open yet. Send the urgent job from the office and watch the phone screen.
This is the one thing a website genuinely cannot do. Once someone closes the tab, a website can reach nobody. It has to wait for them to come back. An app that is closed, in a pocket, still lights up the lock screen. If your work depends on telling someone right now, that is the reason to build an app, not because an app looks better.
| Nothing has arrived yet |
Once the signal returns the app sends what was waiting, with nothing for the engineer to press again. That is the part a real user never has to think about.
This mirrors the screen of the delivered app. Everything here lives in this page and is connected to nothing. The real thing is an Android app written in Kotlin and Jetpack Compose.
Everything you get
This list is the entire scope of the package. Nothing is hidden in a contract.
- Everything in Field
- Reads text from photos on the phone itself, so no image leaves the device
- Maps and location tracking while staff are out working
- Web admin page for reading what the app sends in
- Plans each engineer's run from where they actually are, cutting the kilometres driven every day
- Play Store submission files and listing text prepared for you
- Technical handover doc in English: how it is built, where data goes, how to build it again
- Replies inside the working hours written into the contract, counted in your time zone
- 60 days of support after handover
- iOS. This service is native Android only. If you need both iPhone and Android, I build those separately as an iOS + Android app in React Native from one codebase.
- The Google Play developer account fee, a one-time 25 US dollars, opened under your company name and verified with Google. That one account covers both a Play Store listing and registering an app you hand out outside the store. The D-U-N-S number a company account needs is free.
- Waiting for the D-U-N-S number and Google's verification, which can take up to 28 days, is not counted in the delivery window. The build carries on while you wait, but putting the app on every staff phone waits until the account is ready.
- Pressing submit on the Play Store for you. I prepare every file and document, but the submission should happen inside your own account. I will walk you through it while you do it.
- Ads and getting people to install it. That is marketing, a different line of work from mine.
- A registered company on my side. I am one developer working under my own name in Thailand, and the contract is with me personally, not with an agency.
Questions about this package
Can it read handwriting?
Badly, and I would rather say so. The technology is accurate on printed text and unreliable on quick handwriting, to the point where the output cannot be trusted downstream. If your work is handwritten forms, I will propose entering the data in the app instead, which is both more accurate and cheaper.
How accurate is it really?
On clearly photographed printed documents it is strong, and strongest on the numbers and dates that actually get used downstream. Very small print can still lose a final digit. That is why the screen always asks a person to confirm before saving, rather than trusting the machine completely and filing it silently.
Why on the device? Would the cloud not be simpler?
Simpler, at three costs. Your document images have to travel and a copy remains at the far end. It stops working without a connection, which defeats the reason you bought an app. And you pay per read forever. On-device reading is paid for once during the build and then costs nothing.
Is tracking staff location legal?
Yes, done properly. Location is personal data, so you need a lawful purpose, staff have to be informed, and you keep only what you need. So the app records only between starting and finishing a job, shows an indicator while it is recording, and expires the data on a schedule you set. I can draft the staff notice, but have your own HR or lawyer review it before it is used.
Is there proof on-device reading actually works?
Yes. ReceiptLens is a native Android app I wrote that reads receipts through the camera and separates them into line items, totals and tax, entirely on the device with no connection. It also runs checks that catch receipts whose figures do not add up. The full codebase is public on GitHub and it is in the work section of this site.