Ravi's House Record

Type a lane name and see every job ever done in that house, and every fitting still hanging in it.

Who this is for

Ravi Kadam runs an electrical shop off Karve Road in Kothrud, Pune. He has two boys on bikes and a counter with a stool for customers. A woman from Shivtirth Nagar comes in at half past ten and says the bathroom geyser has stopped. He has been to her building maybe nine times since 2019, but he cannot remember which flat, which geyser, or whether the switch he changed last year was his work or somebody else's.

How the job is done today

There is a carbon-copy bill book under the counter, one for each year, tied with rubber bands. There is a WhatsApp group called Ravi Electric Work where the boys send photos of meter boards, and those photos are now sitting between four thousand other pictures on Ravi's phone. When a customer stands there asking, Ravi does one of three things: guesses, calls the boy who went that day and hopes he remembers, or opens the almirah and turns pages while the customer waits. Most of the time he just charges for a fresh look at the wiring he himself did.

The screens, in order

1. Search — One box where Ravi types a lane, a building name or a flat number and gets the house in two seconds, because the customer is watching him type.
2. House — Shows everything about one address on a single page: who lives there now, the phone number, and the jobs in reverse date order with the newest at the top.
3. Job — The full story of one visit, what was wrong, what was replaced, who went, and the photos taken that day.
4. What is installed — The list of things still fitted in that house, room by room, with the make and the month it went in, so Ravi can say what will fail next.
5. Add a job — Where a boy standing in the house records what he just did, in under a minute, before he starts the bike.

What it keeps track of

• House — building or house name, flat and wing, lane and area, nearest landmark, who lives there now, their phone number
• Job — which house, which day, who went, what the complaint was, what was actually done, what was replaced, photos from that day, a note for next time
• Fitting — which house, which room, what it is, make and model, the month it was fitted, how long the warranty runs, whether it is still there or has been removed

The one decision that matters

The one thing to settle is what the record hangs on: the customer or the address. Hanging it on the customer feels natural, since that is who pays and whose number is saved. But tenants shift every two years, flats get sold, and a son takes over from a father. The wiring stays. Hang it on the address. Then when a new family moves into the same flat in Shivtirth Nagar and calls Ravi for the first time, he already knows the board was upgraded in 2021 and where the concealed junction is behind the kitchen. People are a field on the house, not the other way round.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out money completely. No bill amounts, no paid or pending, no accounts. The moment money enters, Ravi will want tax, printing and the accountant's format, and the whole thing turns into a billing system that nobody fills in properly. The bill book already works. Also leave out typing in the last six years from the old registers. Start from the next job. Within four months of ordinary work, the addresses Ravi visits most will all be in there, because those are the ones he keeps going back to.

How you would know it worked

A customer stands at the counter and says the fan in the back bedroom is humming. Before she finishes explaining which room, Ravi has said: that is the 1200mm we put in March 2023, the regulator is the old one from before our time, that is what is humming. He has not stood up, and he has not opened the almirah.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I am an electrician in Pune and I want a phone app only for me and my two workers, where every house we work in has its own page. I want to type a lane name or a building name in one box and immediately see that house, who lives there now, their number, and every visit we have made there with the date, which boy went, what the complaint was and what we changed, newest first. Each house should also have a list of everything we have fitted there, room by room, with the make and the month it went in and how long the warranty lasts. My boys should be able to add a job from the customer's house in a minute with a few photos. No bills, no payment tracking, only the work record. The search has to be fast because a customer is standing in front of me while I look.