Staff apps that show you what your field team did today
Order booking, deliveries, collections, attendance and tasks in one Android app for the people who work outside your office, with proof attached to every entry.
Enterprise mobility apps are Android apps for a company's own staff: field sales, delivery, collection, service and site teams. They replace phone calls, pocket diaries and scattered WhatsApp photos with records that carry time, location and photo proof. We build them for Indian businesses whose people spend the day at shops, sites and on the road.
- Starting from
- ₹65,000
- Typical range
- ₹1,00,000 – ₹2,50,000 (one team) · ₹2,50,000 – ₹6,00,000 (several roles with approvals)
- Timeline
- 6–8 weeks (first module) · 10–16 weeks (full system)
What we build
- 01
Order booking at the outlet
Sales staff book orders against the live rate list and each customer's credit limit, visible to the office at once.
- 02
Collections with receipts
Cash, cheque and UPI collections entered against invoices, with an instant receipt to the customer on WhatsApp or SMS.
- 03
Attendance with proof
Punch-in with GPS location and a live selfie, with readings from fake-location apps flagged for review.
- 04
Proof of delivery
Receiver photo, signature or OTP for every drop, stamped with time and location.
- 05
Tasks and beat plans
Daily visit plans and job lists assigned from the office, with status updates from the field.
- 06
Expense claims
Fuel and travel claims with bill photos, approved or queried by a manager inside the app.
- 07
Basic device management
Company phones locked to work apps, updates pushed centrally and lost phones wiped remotely.
- 08
Manager dashboard
Collections, visits, orders and exceptions by person and route, on the web and on the owner's phone.
Who this is for
Picture a steel trader in Salem supplying TMT bars, sheets and pipes to hardware shops, fabricators and small builders across the district. Most sales are on credit, and a team of collection agents visits customers every week. Today the agent writes the amount in a pocket diary, the customer may or may not get a handwritten slip, and the cash reaches the office a day or two later. When a shop owner says he paid "your man" on Tuesday, nobody can prove it either way, and outstanding is reconciled at month end if at all. Any business with people working outside the office, in sales, delivery, service, security or site supervision, will recognise a version of this.
What we build
A staff app is assembled from modules, and few businesses need all of them on day one:
- Field sales: beat plans, order booking against the current rate list and each customer's credit limit, and photos of the shop's display where that matters.
- Collections: every payment entered against specific invoices, by cash, cheque or UPI, with a digital receipt sent to the customer through the WhatsApp Business API or SMS the moment it is recorded.
- Delivery: proof of delivery through the receiver's photo, signature or OTP, plus partial deliveries and returns.
- Attendance: punch-in with GPS location and a selfie taken through the app's own camera, so an old photo cannot be reused, and readings from fake-location apps flagged.
- Tasks and expenses: jobs assigned from the office, status updates from the site, and fuel or travel claims with bill photos for a manager to approve.
Built for the field, not the office
The app has to be quicker than the diary it replaces, or agents will quietly drift back to the diary. That means large buttons, the fewest possible taps per entry and screens readable in harsh afternoon sun. It means the app keeps working in a godown or on a highway with no signal and syncs later, which is the subject of our page on offline-first app development. It means testing on the entry-level phones your staff actually carry. And it means being straight with your team about location: we record it at punch-in, punch-out and each logged visit, not as continuous tracking, and we suggest you tell staff in writing exactly what is captured.
Company phones and basic device management
If you issue phones, Android's enterprise features let us lock a device to the work apps, push app updates centrally and wipe a lost phone remotely. A staff-only app can be published privately to your organisation through managed Google Play, so it never appears in public search yet still updates like any other app. For large fleets with strict security policies, a dedicated mobile device management product is the better tool, and we will recommend one rather than rebuild it.
How the build runs
We begin by spending a day with your field staff, not only with the managers. The first phase is usually a single module, often collections or attendance, launched with a small group of willing staff and rolled out to everyone after a month of real use. Our article on rolling out apps to field staff covers this phasing in more depth. Collection entries can flow into your accounts; wholesale businesses should also read about software for wholesale distributors.
What it costs
A single module such as attendance typically starts around ₹65,000. A focused app for one team, with an owner dashboard, is a 6-to-8-week build in the ₹1,00,000 to ₹2,50,000 range. Multi-role systems covering sales, collections, delivery and expenses with approvals cost ₹2,50,000 to ₹6,00,000 and take 10 to 16 weeks. After launch, the recurring bills are hosting, per-message charges for SMS or WhatsApp receipts, and any maintenance retainer you choose. Payments follow milestones: 40 per cent to start, 30 at the midpoint and 30 on delivery.
When a ready-made app is enough
With three field staff and a manager who speaks to each of them daily, a shared sheet and a WhatsApp group may be all you need. Ready-made attendance and sales-force apps also suit businesses whose process matches the product's. Build custom when your credit rules, routes or collection logic do not fit, or when the field data must land in your own systems. VS Tech Builders will look at both routes with you before quoting.
Frequently asked questions
Can staff fake their location or attendance photo?
They can try, and the app is built to make it difficult. Photos must be taken live through the app rather than picked from the gallery, and each is stamped with time and location. Android reports when a location comes from a mock-location app, and we flag those entries for a manager. No app is tamper-proof on a rooted phone, one reason some firms issue their own devices.
Will the app track our staff all day?
Only if you choose that, and we usually advise against it. Most businesses need location at specific moments: punch-in, punch-out, each customer visit and each delivery. That settles disputes without draining batteries or damaging trust. Whatever you decide, tell your team plainly what the app records and when, and put it in their employment terms.
Should we give staff company phones or let them use their own?
Both work. Staff using their own phones need nothing new, since the app is built for entry-level Android handsets, but you cannot lock or wipe a personal phone. Company phones cost more upfront and let you restrict them to work apps, push updates centrally and erase data if one is lost. Many businesses start with personal phones and switch as the team grows.
How do we get field staff to actually use it?
Make it faster than what they do now, and start small. Each entry should take fewer taps than writing in a diary. Launch one module with a few willing staff, fix what they report, then roll out. Tying something staff value, such as quicker expense reimbursement or visible incentive figures, to the app does more for adoption than any instruction from the office.
Can customers get a receipt as soon as they pay our agent?
Yes. When the agent records a collection against an invoice, the customer receives a digital receipt on WhatsApp or SMS within moments of the entry syncing, showing the amount, the payment mode, the invoices settled and the agent's name. That single feature tends to end payment disputes, because both sides hold the same record from the moment money changes hands.
Related services
- Android App DevelopmentOffline-first Apps
Staff record everything on the phone in a village, a cold room or a basement, and the app syncs by itself when the network returns, without losing or doubling a single entry.
- Android App DevelopmentNative Android Apps
Customer apps, staff apps and owner apps written natively for Android, the platform almost every Indian customer and field worker already uses, and tested on the budget handsets they actually own.
- Custom Management SoftwareCRM & Sales Pipeline
Every enquiry from your website, WhatsApp, ads and walk-ins in one pipeline, with follow-up reminders, quotes, a field app and reports that show which source actually converts.
- Web DevelopmentDashboards & Reporting
Role-based dashboards built on the data you already hold in billing software, Tally or spreadsheets, with drill-down, exports, WhatsApp alerts and a layout made for the phone.
Built for businesses like yours
- Wholesale distributors
A salesman app for the beat, a scheme engine for billing, credit control, van settlement and supplier claims that recover money you are owed.
- Security agencies
Deployment across client sites, shift rosters, attendance with photo and location, reliever cover, payroll inputs and billing per post.
- Solar installers
Lead capture, site surveys with photos, quotations by kW, paperwork tracking, installation stages and annual service calls in one workflow.
Further reading
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