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.
Many lightweight tools track tasks and documents—but for the commercial backbone of your project, you're back in Excel. BOQ management, variations and payment calculations linked to certified work stay manual.
Your planner's P6 schedule lives somewhere else.
Your planning team uses Primavera P6. If your app can't read P6 files, you end up with two systems that never talk, and progress updates need manual re-entry.
Integration options can be limited.
Some lightweight tools offer few ways to connect to your other systems. Arkan provides an API for integrations.
Payment certificates are manual calculations.
If your tool doesn't connect inspections, BOQ items and payments, you certify work in one place and 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.
Where Lightweight Tools Often Stop
The features that separate project tracking from project management.
Primavera P6 Schedule Import
- Often no P6 support
- Manual schedule entry
- Little critical path visibility
- Schedule not linked to progress
- Import .xml or .xer files from P6
- Grid and Gantt views
- Critical path analysis
- Inspection-to-activity linking
Complete BOQ Management
- Track in spreadsheets
- No variation workflow
- Manual calculations
- Changes hard to trace
- Full BOQ hierarchy in system
- Variations with approval workflow
- Values calculated by the system
- Transaction history
Payment Requests
- Manual IPC preparation
- No BOQ connection
- Calculate in Excel
- Approvals by email
- 4-step guided wizard
- BOQ items selected directly
- Retention, advance recovery and VAT
- Approval workflow with history
Issues Pinned to Drawings
- Upload and download
- Issues tracked separately
- Comments via email
- No link to location
- Smart Pins on drawing PDFs
- NCRs linked to pin locations
- Tasks and RFIs referencing drawings
- Workflow for each NCR
Where Lightweight Tools Get Stretched
As your business grows, you may need more than a lightweight tool was built for.
We Didn't Sacrifice Simplicity
Everything you love about lightweight tools. Plus everything you need.
Comparison based on publicly available information as of September 2026. Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud, Autodesk Forma and Oracle Aconex are trademarks of their respective owners; Arkan is not affiliated with them. Features and pricing may change; check each vendor's website for current details.