--- title: "Software for trades and construction ยท Elchi Studios" description: "From timesheet to invoice without retyping: a website, site recording and email for trade businesses, run on our own servers in Switzerland and the EU." url: https://elchi.dev/en/loesungen/branchen/handwerk language: en --- Trades and construction # From timesheet to invoice, without retyping. The work happens on site, the paperwork happens in the office, and hours get lost in between. We build websites, site recording and email that shorten that path, and we tell you when the software you already have can do it. ## Where the time goes ### Timesheets on paper A student project at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) studied a Swiss timber construction firm with around 150 employees. Daily work reports were written by hand on paper and only digitised in the office, and site photos ended up on private phones rather than in a shared store. According to the study, this costs time, creates double entry and delays everything that follows. ### Enquiries arrive when nobody has time Customers call while the team is on site. Calls get returned in the evening, and often the address, a photo or the time frame is still missing. The people who would sort this out are in demand: in the Swiss Skills Shortage Index 2025, site managers, foremen and production managers rank second, electricians and electronics technicians fourth. ### Knowledge is scattered Plans in email, photos on phones, hours in the timesheet book, materials on the delivery note. Anyone with a question about a job searches in four places. The FHNW study names filing and finding documents and photos as the second place, next to the timesheets, where information has to change medium. ## What we build instead ### A website that makes enquiries complete. A form that asks for the location, the type of work and the time frame, and lands in the admin area and in your inbox. You maintain references, texts and images yourself; images are resized automatically on upload. For a construction machinery dealer in the canton of Zug, the time until the main content appeared went from 24.5 to 3.0 seconds, measured with Google PageSpeed Insights. That is still above Google's 2.5-second threshold, and the project continues. CHF 6,000 fixed price, then CHF 300 a month. ### Recording on site. As a mandate: hours, materials and photos recorded on the phone, where the work happens, and filed so that the office finds them for the invoice. Sign-in runs through EAuth, with a passkey instead of a password if you prefer. ### Email for the whole business. EMX (Beta) on your domain, with shared mailboxes for info@ and quotes@ at no extra licence, in the mail app of any phone. CHF 4 per mailbox and month. The FHNW study reached a conclusion we share: extending the software a business already runs often brings more than a new programme. In one case the function being looked for was already licensed and simply not used. If that is your situation, we will tell you. ## What you can expect from us **Working time.** Where the Labour Act applies, records must show, among other things, daily and weekly hours worked and breaks of half an hour or more, and must be kept for at least five years (Art. 73 Ordinance 1 to the Labour Act). If we build recording on the phone, we build it so that these details are complete. **Receipts.** Books and accounting records must be kept for ten years (Art. 958f Code of Obligations). EMX is not an archive for this. **Data location.** Stored data sits on our own servers at European providers in Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and France. Notification mails, for example about a new enquiry, are sent by Resend in the USA. **Contract and export.** A data processing agreement under Art. 9 FADP is part of our legal texts. You can export texts, images, enquiries and data in full at any time, without asking us. ## Questions we hear ### Do our foremen have to learn a new app? Not if it can be avoided. If your trade software has mobile recording, we would rather advise you to introduce that. If we build something, we build as little as needed, together with the people who will use it. ### What does the website cost, and when is it ready? CHF 6,000, half on order and half on handover, then CHF 300 a month for operation, updates, changes and support. You see the first draft in your browser after two weeks, and the site is usable after about thirty days. ### Can we add references ourselves? Yes. You change texts, images and prices in the admin area without asking us. The layout is ours to change, not yours. ### Do we need a separate app for EMX? No. The phone's own mail app works, and Outlook, Apple Mail and Thunderbird find the settings themselves. We do not offer an app of our own. ## Tell us where your office retypes things A short message is enough. Within two working days someone from the team that would build it replies. Write to us at [elchi.dev/en/kontakt](https://elchi.dev/en/kontakt) or call +41 58 513 63 11, weekdays from 8 to 18. [Talk to us](https://elchi.dev/en/kontakt) [+41 58 513 63 11](tel:+41585136311) [contact@elchi.dev](mailto:contact@elchi.dev) ## Sources 1. [FHNW School of Business, "Zwischen Bauplan und Bildschirm", analysis of media breaks in a Swiss timber construction SME](https://studierendenprojekte.wirtschaft.fhnw.ch/view/4985) 2. [Adecco Group Switzerland and the Swiss Job Market Monitor of the University of Zurich, Skills Shortage Index Switzerland 2025](https://www.adeccogroup.com/-/media/project/adecco-group/switzerland/swiss-skills-shortage/2025/files/medienmitteilung_fkm_national_2025.pdf) 3. [Ordinance 1 to the Labour Act, Art. 73](https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2000/243/de) 4. [Code of Obligations, Art. 958f](https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/27/317_321_377/de) 5. [Federal Act on Data Protection, Art. 9](https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2022/491/de) 6. Elchi Studios: [websites.elchi.dev/de/](https://websites.elchi.dev/de/), [websites.elchi.dev/de/preis](https://websites.elchi.dev/de/preis), [elchi.dev/de/loesungen/website](https://elchi.dev/de/loesungen/website), [elchi.dev/de/emx](https://elchi.dev/de/emx), [elchi.dev/de/eauth](https://elchi.dev/de/eauth), [elchi.dev/de/engineering](https://elchi.dev/de/engineering), [elchi.dev/de/vertrauen](https://elchi.dev/de/vertrauen), [legal.elchi.dev/de/avv](https://legal.elchi.dev/de/avv), [elchi.dev/en/kontakt](https://elchi.dev/en/kontakt) [See all industries](https://elchi.dev/en/loesungen/branchen)