Outgrow Your Spreadsheets. Not Your Software.
Lightweight construction apps get you started fast—but hit a wall when your projects get complex. No BOQ management. No P6 integration. No Arabic. No API. Arkan keeps the simplicity you love and adds the features you need to scale.
Great for Getting Started. Not for Growing.
Lightweight tools solve the first problem—getting organized. But they create new problems when your business scales.
Your BOQ lives in a spreadsheet next to the app.
Lightweight tools track tasks and documents—but when it comes to the commercial backbone of your project, you're back in Excel. BOQ management? Variations? Payment calculations linked to certified work? That's manual.
Your planner's P6 schedule exists in a parallel universe.
Your planning team uses Primavera P6 because that's the industry standard. Your lightweight app can't read P6 files. So you have two systems that never talk, and progress updates require manual translation.
You can't integrate with anything.
No API means no connections. Your lightweight tool is an island. Want to connect to your ERP? Your BI dashboard? Your custom reporting system? Not possible.
Payment certificates are manual calculations.
Lightweight tools don't understand the relationship between inspections, BOQ items, and payment certificates. You certify work in the app, then manually calculate IPCs in a separate spreadsheet. Every month.
Keep What Works. Add What's Missing.
Arkan doesn't sacrifice simplicity for power. You get both.
What Lightweight Tools Can't Do
The features that separate project tracking from project management.
Native Primavera P6 Integration
- No P6 support
- Manual schedule entry
- No critical path visibility
- No schedule-to-progress linking
- Direct XML import from P6
- Automatic activity sync
- Critical path visualization
- Inspection-to-activity mapping
Complete BOQ Management
- Track in spreadsheets
- No variations
- Manual calculations
- No audit trail
- Full BOQ hierarchy in system
- Additions, omissions, adjustments
- Auto-calculated values
- SHA-256 verified history
Payment Certificate Automation
- Manual IPC preparation
- No BOQ connection
- Calculate in Excel
- Paper signatures
- 4-step guided workflow
- BOQ items directly selected
- Auto-calculated from certified work
- Digital signatures included
Real-Time Drawing Collaboration
- Upload and download
- No markup tools
- Comments via email
- No issue tracking
- Real-time SignalR sync
- Full markup suite (pencil, shapes, colors)
- Threaded comments on drawing
- Smart pins with status management
Where Lightweight Tools Break
As your business grows, lightweight tools create more problems than they solve.
We Didn't Sacrifice Simplicity
Everything you love about lightweight tools. Plus everything you need.
Why Teams Made the Switch
"We started with a lightweight app. It worked for our fit-out projects. Then we won a main contractor job with P6 requirements and BOQ complexity. The app couldn't handle it. Arkan could—and the transition was painless."
"Our lightweight tool had no Arabic. My site supervisors were working in English when Arabic is their first language. Switching to Arkan removed that friction immediately. Adoption went through the roof."