Building a construction document platform that keeps every team on the right drawing
An end-to-end engineering partnership helping Capsa build, scale and secure a construction document management platform across web and mobile, so small and mid-sized building teams always work from the latest version.
The Challenge
Construction SMEs typically run projects off shared drives, email chains and folders of files with names like “Final_FINAL_v8”. When someone builds off an outdated drawing, the result is rework, disputes and costs that can run into tens of thousands of pounds. Teams of 5 to 50 people feel this pain most: too large to manage documents informally, too small for enterprise tools or a dedicated document controller. Capsa needed an engineering partner to turn this vision into a reliable, affordable SaaS product: one place where every party on a project sees the current version of every document, with a full audit trail, simple per-project pricing, and access from site on a phone or tablet. The platform also had to be secure, scalable and cost-effective to run as the customer base grew.
What We Did
- 1
Discovery & product foundations
We worked closely with Capsa’s founders to understand how builders, architects, QSs and project managers share drawings, specs and contracts. From there we designed the core data model for projects, documents and revisions, and laid down the platform foundations on Node.js, React and PostgreSQL.
- 2
Document engine & search
We built construction-specific version control that keeps every revision stored and timestamped while surfacing the latest one first. Uploaded PDFs are processed in the background through Redis-backed job queues and indexed with PostgreSQL full-text search, so users can find any detail across thousands of pages in seconds. Real-time updates keep every team member in sync.
- 3
Subscriptions & billing
We implemented Capsa’s per-project pricing model on Stripe, covering recurring subscriptions, saved payment methods, automatic tax, free trials and annual plans, with webhook handling for every stage of the subscription lifecycle.
- 4
Mobile experience
We delivered the Capsa mobile app for iOS and Android so site teams can check the latest drawing on the spot. An automated pipeline builds, signs and ships releases straight to the App Store and Google Play.
- 5
AI-assisted document workflows
We introduced an AI assistant powered by Google Gemini that helps users organize uploaded documents and ask questions about their project, with careful cost modelling to keep it affordable at Capsa’s price point.
- 6
Infrastructure, security & DevOps
We own the full infrastructure stack: separate development, staging and production environments, CI/CD with GitHub Actions, point-in-time database recovery with pgBackRest, secure session management and regular security audits. We are now migrating the platform to AWS to support the next stage of growth.
- 7
Ongoing support & evolution
We provide continuous maintenance, performance tuning and new feature delivery, alongside supporting services such as transactional email, customer support tooling and GDPR-compliant analytics.
The Outcome
Capsa launched and scaled a focused, construction-specific document platform that SMEs can be live on in minutes, with no setup calls or onboarding. Its customers now work from a single source of truth across web and mobile, with unlimited team members per project. One customer, MAKE Projects, reports cutting weekly document management from 80 hours to 10. Capsa gained a dependable, long-term engineering partner covering product, mobile and infrastructure, allowing the founders to focus on customers and growth.
Services
Technologies
““Before Capsa, we were spending 80 hours a week managing documents. Now it is 10.””