Truss.
CONSTRUCTION PROCUREMENT MADE EASY
Construction procurement in Kerala still runs on phone calls, notebooks, and negotiation by attrition. Truss connects everyone in the loop — contractors, vendors, site stores, and the Truss team — each with their own portal — so enquiring, quoting, and purchasing materials happens in one transparent system.
[Truss — Cover] · Portal screens around the Truss splash. Figures on this page come from prototype data.
Four ways to lose money.
Contractors call 3–4 dealers per requirement and still don't know if the price was fair.
The office orders, the site receives. Short or damaged deliveries surface days later, if at all.
Surplus at one site is bought again for another. Stores keep paper registers that never match.
Anyone can claim to be a dealer. Disputes are settled by whoever shouts louder.
Five people, one shared order record
Director, Skyline Builders.
Contractor portalOwner, Prestige Materials.
Vendor portalStore manager, Kakkanad Central Store.
Warehouse portalSite engineer, Block B.
Truss Site (mobile)Operations lead, Truss.
Admin portalOne door each.
- Home
- Projects
- Enquiries
- Orders
- Warehouses
- Vendors
- Home
- Enquiries
- Orders
- Catalogue
- Customers
- Rates
- Home
- Deliveries
- Stock
- Requests
- Transfers
- Reports
- Home
- Verifications
- Companies
- Rates
- Orders
- Disputes
- Home
- New request
- Tracking
- Handover
- History
One library, re-themed
The foundation is a quiet, document-like system: cream canvas #F5F1EC, ink #111, hairline #D3CEC6, and Inter with JetBrains Mono for IDs.
One component library is re-themed by a single "Portal" variable mode, so every portal feels related but distinct: Contractor orange, with ink text on the accent; Vendor blue, Warehouse green and Admin crimson, with white text on the accent.
Charcoal is always the primary button. The accent colour is used for at most one hero action per screen.
The whole loop, one record.
ORD-2026-0419 · 750 bags UltraTech OPC 53 · Skyline Heights
Wed 17 Sep → Mon 22 Sep → paid by 21 Oct. Each step is the real screen at that moment.
750 bags go to every verified dealer who delivers to Kakkanad, not four phone calls.
Truss checks Skyline's own stores first: Vyttila has 120 surplus bags, moved later by transfer (TRF-0032).
Truss publishes the Kochi median (₹412/bag) from live vendor prices. Outliers are held for review, not published.
₹412/bag incl. GST, delivery 19 Sep, 30-day credit, with today's market rate beside her price.
Price, delivery, credit terms and vendor record in one view, against the market rate.
Sean counters in the thread with the ₹405 quote as leverage. Prestige settles at ₹408 with 30-day credit.
Purchase order PO-SKY-2026-118 is generated from the record. Under Sean's limit, so no approval step.
Prestige confirms, generates the E-Way bill and adds the vehicle. The store sees it instantly.
Rahul's day starts with the gate schedule: 750 bags, KL-41-H-2218, ETA 9:40.
Vehicle, E-Way bill, quantity and amount are checked against the order automatically. A missing test certificate is flagged.
750 counted, 12 torn bags rejected with photos, setting-time sample sent to the lab.
Stock updates (42 → 780 bags), a ₹4,896 credit note is requested, and Sean can pay ₹3,01,104.
One message with the outcome and a link; no portal visit needed.
Anil signs for the cement on his phone. ₹1,04,640 is booked to Block B, 9th floor.
Prestige sees ₹3,01,104 against INV-2026-0402, with credit note CN-PM-0012 already applied.
The payout run sends cleared money to Prestige's verified account. Holds and disputes are skipped automatically.
Every portal shows the same figures, because they all read one record.
Four cockpits.
Projects carry budgets. Buying is one flow: stock check → enquiry → compare → negotiate → order. Orders above ₹5 L go to the director.
Real enquiries from verified buyers, today's market rate next to every quote, credit limits per customer, payment T+1.
Receiving is a guided flow (gate → quality → goods received note), with partial acceptance built in. The stock register reconciles itself, and site engineers request material instead of calling.
A risk-first home. Verification with automatic GSTN, PAN and bank checks, and a 24-hour deadline. Rates that need review only on exceptions. Disputes decided on the order's evidence.
The rest of the system
Site engineers request material from the store's real stock and sign for it on their phone.
Short chat and SMS updates with one link, plus a purchase order, goods received note and GST tax invoice generated from the same record.
A landing page, then one door that routes each person to their portal.
Offline at the gate (check-ins queue on the tablet), session expired, no access, maintenance.
Six decisions that make one record work for five people.
The enquiry, PO, GRN, invoice and payout are all views of one record, so ₹3,06,000 is ₹3,06,000 everywhere.
Accepting 738 of 750 bags with a photo-backed credit note removes the most common argument in the loop.
Vendors quote against the published Kochi median and contractors compare against it. Negotiation becomes a conversation about data, not stamina.
Rates publish automatically and only outliers (more than 8% from the median) wait for a person.
The stock check runs before an enquiry goes out. Surplus at one site becomes a transfer, with the cost moved between project budgets.
A single component library themed by a Portal variable mode: orange, blue, green and crimson accents from the same components.
What it should buy back.
Outcome figures are design targets from the prototype data, not measured results.
Designing the record, not the screen
The work on Truss was less about individual screens than about the thing underneath them: a shared order record, and a system of components that could show it five different ways without disagreeing with itself.
The hardest part was keeping those five views consistent down to the rupee. A rejection at the gate has to move a credit note, an invoice total, a project budget and a payout run — and each portal has to explain the change in its own language without changing the number.
What I'd test next: gate check-in on a real site tablet, where the network drops and hands are busy, and whether vendors trust the published market rate enough to quote against it.