SmartTrade

The Opportunity

Back in January 2014, SmartTrade had a vision to make the day-to-day running of business easier, solving the problem that so many companies have of accepting payments and managing paperwork.

They came up with SmartTrade App, a business management app designed to gather customers, jobs, invoices, quotes and payments into one single, integrated platform, and fully accessible via a smartphone.

Helping businesses get organised

The overarching goal was to fit all the great SmartTrade features into a simple and easy-to-use mobile experience. So that professionals could essentially have all the information they need in their pockets, including job appointments, customer lists and up-to-date payment data too.

It’s even possible to generate quotes for jobs directly from the app, as well as fill in invoices on the go.

How We Helped

The team entrusted Whitesmith with the mobile development of both the Android and iOS apps and we’ve been working together ever since to create an award-winning mobile app that’s used and loved by hundreds of professionals every day, including tradesmen, beauticians, taxi companies, B&Bs, designers and charities.

Data on the go

Since the app was to be used by professionals in their everyday workplaces and routines, it was essential that the data was available anytime, anywhere, regardless of the network connection that their device could reach.

We solved this challenge with the integration of CouchBase, a data platform that allows synching between mobile devices and a remote server. It brought incredible flexibility to the app and the customers loved it.

Making payments easier

The ability to accept payments in the app is probably the most important feature of SmartTrade, with businesses even able to manage cash or email payments.

Card payments, however, are where the app really shines. And it’s super simple thanks to an integration we enabled between OCR card scanners and Stripe payment solutions. Professionals just need to scan the customer’s card and get paid quickly, easily and safely - no expensive software, no merchant accounts, no hassle!