14 of 18 men paid
The headcount nobody can prove
You had 18 men on Level 14. The main contractor pays for 14, and your evidence is a WhatsApp group with 900 messages in it.
CrewLedgerFor Gulf subcontractors
Your crew reports on WhatsApp. Your office gets records it can bill.
Foremen send voice notes in Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tagalog or Arabic. CrewLedger turns them into manpower sheets, site instructions, delay notices and expense records your QS can put in front of the main contractor the same day.
Fit-out, MEP, facade and scaffolding firmsNo new app for the crewRegional data hosting
0:24
Level 14, aaj 18 banday. 6 electrician, 4 plumber, 8 helper. 8 se 5 baje tak. Theek hai?
Theek hai
Manpower recorded
AreaLevel 14
Headcount18
Hours08:00 to 17:00
Paid hours144
0:31
Mr. Fletcher ne 12 floor box east wall par shift karne ko kaha. Instruction save kar dun?
Message
Where the money goes
Subcontractors do the work, then can't prove it at billing time.
Your sites already run on WhatsApp. The trouble starts at month end, when the main contractor asks for proof and all you have is a group chat.
0 claims raised
The instruction that never became a claim
A consultant tells your foreman to move the floor boxes. The crew does it that afternoon. Nobody writes it down, so the variation is never billed.
Weeks before it is logged
The receipt from site cash
Fittings bought with petty cash get logged weeks later from a blurry photo, if anyone logs them at all.
And the daily ones your coordinators already know
- Crew kept waiting at the gate by building management
- Same scope, new location, extra hours nobody counts
- Short loading found 200 km from the workshop
- Permit missing the night before the crew travels
- Another trade's dust ruins finished work
- Snags caused by others, blamed on you
- Technicians late or not showing up
How it works
The foreman talks. The office gets a record it can use.
Nobody on site learns new software. They keep sending voice notes and photos to a WhatsApp number, the same way they do today.
Step 1
Crew speaks in their own language
A voice note, a photo of a delivery note, a picture of the receipt. CrewLedger knows your project names, areas and site terms.
Step 2
It reads the note back
The sender hears or reads the summary in their language and confirms it. A wrong number gets fixed before it reaches the office.
"Theek hai" locks the record.
Step 3
The office gets it filed
Each record lands against the right project, floor and item, with the original audio, photos, time and location attached.
Step 4
Reports write themselves
The daily report comes out in your main contractor's template. Owners get a 90-second audio briefing for every site.
Nothing becomes a record until the person who said it confirms it.
Original audio and photos are stored as they arrived and never edited.
CrewLedger warns and holds work. A person on your team makes the call.
A day on site
One glass partition job in Abu Dhabi, start to finish.
The workshop is in Dubai, 200 km away. Sarah coordinates, Andrew runs the workshop, Michael leads the crew. Pick a moment to see what CrewLedger did.
Everyone knows the plan before they leave camp
Sarah types the day's plan once, in English. Each worker gets it as a voice note in their own language, and the office can see who played it.
Sarah · Office
MR-1 and MR-2 partitions today. Film on MR-3 after gypsum finishes. Gate pass at 06:50. CrewLedger to Andrew
0:18 voice note in Malayalam Same message, spoken in Malayalam - Sent
- 06:30 in 4 languages
- Not played
- Nathan (Bengali). Reminder sent 06:45
You know who turned up by 07:15
Michael sends one voice note from the site. CrewLedger checks it against the plan and tells Sarah which two are missing while there's still time to call them.
Michael · Foreman
0:14 voice note "Aath banday pohanch gaye. Ryan aur Simon abhi nahi aaye." CrewLedger
8 on site, Ryan and Simon missing. Sarah has been told. Theek hai? - Planned
- 10 (glazing, film, helpers)
- Reported
- 8 at 07:15
- Missing
- Ryan, Simon. Marked late, not absent
Idle time becomes a notice, with the minutes counted
Building management kept the crew outside for 1 hour 40 minutes. Michael mentioned it in passing. CrewLedger counted the lost man-hours and drafted the delay notice.
Michael · 07:00
0:09 voice note "Gate pe khade hain, 8 banday. BM entry nahi de raha." Michael · 08:40
Andar aa gaye. - Crew idle
- 8 men, 07:00 to 08:40
- Lost
- 13.3 man-hours
- Evidence
- 2 voice notes, gate photo, location
Nobody builds from an old drawing
Revision C of the partition drawing went out at 09:00. CrewLedger sent it to the workshop and the site, and held MR-2 until both acknowledged it.
CrewLedger to Andrew
DR-12 Rev C replaces Rev B. Please confirm you have it before cutting glass for MR-2. Andrew · Workshop
Got it, Rev C. Cutting from this one. - Superseded
- Rev B, marked void
- Sent to
- Workshop, site foreman
- MR-2
- Released after both confirmed
A verbal change turns into a signed instruction the same afternoon
The interior designer asked Michael to move the MR-2 partition 600 mm. CrewLedger froze the area, drafted the site instruction and got it signed before the crew touched it.
Michael · 14:55
0:22 voice note "Designer keh rahi hai MR-2 ka partition 600 mm left karo. 6 ghante aur 2 bracket extra lagenge." CrewLedger
MR-2 is on hold until the instruction is signed. Sarah is drafting SI-021 now. - Change
- MR-2 partition moved 600 mm left
- Given by
- Interior designer, on site
- Extra
- 6 man-hours, 2 brackets
- Next
- VO-007 drafted. Invoiced at AED 6,200
The missing rolls are found at the workshop, not on site
Andrew photographs the loaded truck. CrewLedger checks it line by line against the delivery note before it leaves Dubai.
Andrew · Workshop
3 photos · truck loading DN-047 CrewLedger
38 of 40 lines loaded. 2 frosted film rolls missing. Hold the truck? - Packed
- 40 lines
- Loaded
- 38 lines
- Result
- Truck held 20 minutes. The crew didn't lose tomorrow
A missing permit shows up 14 hours early
Every evening CrewLedger checks tomorrow's work against the permit register. Sarah gets the alert and chases it tonight, before eight men drive to Abu Dhabi.
CrewLedger to Sarah
Tomorrow: film works on MR-3 need a hot-works permit. None on file. Crew leaves at 05:30. Owner briefing · 1:30
"Crew waited 1 h 40 m at the gate. MR-2 change signed. Two rolls on tomorrow's truck. Permit chased." - Checked
- 18:00 for tomorrow's scope
- Flagged
- MR-3 film works
- Owner
- Sarah, alerted 18:01
What the office sees
Every site on one screen, sorted by what costs you money.
Headcount against plan, hours lost, changes still waiting to be billed, and permits about to expire. Each line opens the voice note and photos behind it.
app.crewledger.ae/today
Abu Dhabi office fit-out · Floors 3 and 4
Tuesday, 18:05On site8 / 102 late, 0 absent
Man-hours lost13.3Gate delay DL-009
Changes not billedAED 6,200VO-007, 0 days old
Permits1 missingNeeded by 05:30
| Ref | What happened | Status | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| SI-021 | MR-2 partition moved 600 mm left, on designer's word | VO drafted | AED 6,200 |
| DL-009 | 8 men held at the gate, 07:00 to 08:40 | Notice sent | 13.3 hrs |
| DS-004 | Gypsum sanding next to finished film, MR-3 | Re-charged | Gypsum trade |
| DN-047 | Truck loading, 2 frosted film rolls missing | Fixed at workshop | 38 / 40 |
| EX-221 | PVC fittings bought on site, receipt photo | Awaiting approval | AED 340 |
When the claim gets rejected
Six weeks later, you send the evidence pack.
On a Business Bay tower, the consultant engineer told the foreman to move 12 floor boxes to the east wall. CrewLedger logged it and sent a confirmation of verbal instruction at 16:02 the same day.
Six weeks later the main contractor rejected the variation. The QS exported one PDF with the original voice note, its transcript, the photos, the time and the location. The claim went through.
Example scenario based on a typical fit-out package. Your own figures depend on your contracts.
Evidence pack · SI-014
Exported PDF- Voice note, 31 sec. Foreman reports the consultant's instruction, Level 14
- Read-back confirmed by the foreman in Urdu
- 2 photos of the floor box positions, with location
- Confirmation of verbal instruction sent to the consultant
- Manpower sheet showing the extra man-days on L14
AED 18,500variation recovered
12 man-daysof manpower restored
What it covers
Built around the paperwork a subcontractor gets paid on.
01
Changes and variations
Verbal instructions and "small favours" get logged, the area is held until someone signs, and the SI and variation order are drafted for you.
02
Manpower
Trades, headcount and hours per area from one voice note. Paid hours add up without anyone retyping a sheet at 6 pm.
03
Delays and idle time
Access refusals and other trades in the way are recorded with the man-hours lost, and the notice is drafted before the deadline passes.
04
Site cash and expenses
Purchases logged by voice, receipts read from photos, and each one sent to a manager for approval.
05
Drawings and permits
The right revision reaches the right people with proof they got it. Permits are checked the evening before the crew needs them.
06
Deliveries and loading
Packed, loaded and received are checked against each other, so short loads are caught at the workshop.
07
Snags and handover
Every snag is tagged as yours or another trade's, with photos per area at handover.
08
Messages to the crew
Type once in English. Every worker hears it in their own language, and you can see who played it.
Straight answers
What CrewLedger won't do for you.
We'd rather you hear this before the pilot than after it.
- It can't stop work on site.It holds an area and tells the right people. Your foreman still decides whether the crew picks up tools.
- It can't control other contractors.It records what they did to your work and drafts the re-charge. Getting paid for it is still a commercial conversation.
- It can't make a client sign.It drafts the instruction, chases it, and reminds you when an approved change still has no variation after 7 days.
- A location pin supports your case.On its own it won't settle a dispute. The voice note, the read-back and the photos do the heavy lifting together.
Start with one site
A pilot with pass marks you set before it starts.
We set up CrewLedger on one live site with your project names, areas and site vocabulary loaded in. Then we judge it on three things.
80%
of working days, your foremen send their updates without being chased.
1+
change on site becomes a signed instruction or an invoiced variation.
Daily
management reads the CrewLedger report instead of phoning the site for updates.
Questions
What owners ask us first.
Do our crews need to install anything?
No. They send voice notes and photos to a WhatsApp number, which they already know how to do. The office uses a web dashboard.
Which languages does it understand?
Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tagalog and Gulf Arabic, plus English. We add your own site terms and project names so "DB-3" and "MR-2" are heard correctly.
What happens when it mishears a voice note?
The sender sees the summary in their own language before anything is saved. If a number is wrong, they say so and it gets corrected. Nothing reaches the office unconfirmed.
Can it produce reports in our main contractor's format?
Yes. We set up the daily report to match the template your main contractor already asks for, so your QS submits it as is.
Where is our data kept?
Enterprise accounts can have their data hosted in the region. Original audio and photos are stored unedited, and each company's records are kept separate from every other company's.
How is it priced?
Per company, based on how many workers you have on site. Firms with more than 200 workers get an enterprise plan with regional hosting. A single variation the size of the one in our example above covers a year of a mid-size plan.
Next step
Let's look at one of your sites.
Tell us which project loses you the most in unbilled hours or changes. We'll show you what CrewLedger would have caught on it last month, on a call with the people who build it.
Call us(754) 971-6804
Call UAE+971 503225262
Replies within 24 hours, every working day. NDA ready on request.