A warehouse with no map
Items had no assigned shelf. Finding a specific curtain rod or lamp meant walking the aisles.
Cost: Hours lost every week just locating stock.
Case Study · Operations Software · 2026
Tropilux went from a pile of forms to one system that runs the whole warehouse.
A custom inventory and operations platform for a company that furnishes and maintains apartment properties — 15 modules, 5 roles, real-time everywhere, built and shipped in about six months.
- Modules
- 15
- User roles
- 5
- Permission rules
- ~140
- From kickoff to launch
- ~6 mo
Modules
User roles
Permission rules
From kickoff to launch
▸ every shelf above is live. scroll to follow one item through the system.▍
[App screenshot]
[App screenshot]
Client
Tropilux, a company that furnishes, maintains and turns over apartment units across multiple properties.
Scope
Discovery, permission design, UX, full-stack build, real-time infrastructure, backups, launch, and a complete user manual.
Outcome
One source of truth for stock, requests, purchasing, returns, tasks and timesheets — used daily by warehouse, office and field staff.
The problem
Before: nobody knew what was where
Tropilux was running a growing multi-property operation on a patchwork that had stopped scaling. Inventory lived in a spreadsheet behind a basic form. Requests came in by text, paper, and whoever caught the warehouse manager first. Every process had its own form — and none of them talked to each other.
A form for everything, a system for nothing
Requests, intake, timesheets and purchasing each had their own spreadsheet or paper form. Nothing reconciled.
Cost: No single number anyone trusted.
Shrinkage and waste
Tools went out to properties and never came back. Damaged items got replaced with no record of the damage. Stock counts drifted from reality with no way to trace why.
Cost: Unexplained losses, month after month.
No approvals, no thresholds
Anyone could ask for anything in any quantity. High-value items went out on the same footing as a box of light bulbs.
Cost: Overspend and duplicate orders.
Costs nobody could pin down
Supplier prices changed, but the “cost” of what a property used was a guess.
Cost: No way to bill accurately or spot waste.
Staff worked around the tools
The old form was clunky on a phone, so field staff skipped it. Data was incomplete because entering it was a chore.
Cost: The system was only as good as the people who bothered to use it.
[Quote from Tropilux about what it was like before — e.g. “We were ordering things we already had because nobody could find them.”]
[Name, Role, Tropilux]
What we built
After: one system, every workflow
We rebuilt the operation as a single web app — installable on a phone, live-updating, and permission-aware down to the individual button. Instead of digitizing the old forms, we redesigned each process around how the warehouse actually works.
- Start Here
- Daily Operations
- Inventory & Stock
- Warehouse Setup
- Administration
Main aisle →
↑ Entrance
Hover a room for a summary; select it for the full description.
Follow one item
Follow one item through the system
Here's the life of a single 72-inch curtain rod — from purchase order to shelf to apartment and back. Every step is a screen in the app, and every step leaves a record.
OrderReceiveShelveRequestDispenseReturn
72" Curtain rod · SKU [xxxx]
Purchase order
PO-[n]
24 × curtain rod · $[x] each
Ordered
Audit log
- 01PO-[n] placed · 24 units · $[x]
Unit cost
$[x] ea
quoted on PO-[n]
Step 1 — Order
Warehouse drafts a purchase order; Admin reviews and locks in quantity and unit cost.
Step 2 — Receive
The shipment arrives. Each receipt is recorded at its actual cost as its own lot — this is what makes costing honest later.
Step 3 — Shelve
The item gets a shelf. Every item has one. Search shows it; the warehouse walks straight to it.
Step 4 — Request
Field staff at a property open a request: building, unit, room, item, quantity, reason, photo. The app checks stock and warns if this unit just got the same thing.
Step 5 — Dispense
Warehouse approves and hands it out. Stock is deducted from the oldest lot first, so the request is priced at what those specific rods actually cost.
Step 6 — Return
One rod comes back unused. Nothing is credited until Warehouse physically accepts it — then it lands in the Used Pool with a condition and a shelf.
Six screens, one item, a complete trail of who did what and when — and a cost figure that's real.
How it works
Designed around the way a warehouse actually runs
The request lifecycle
- REQ-2026-[n] · 01PendingStamped
- REQ-2026-[n] · 02Pending Admin ApprovalStamped
- REQ-2026-[n] · 03ApprovedStamped
- REQ-2026-[n] · 04DispensedStamped
- REQ-2026-[n] · 05Pending ReturnStamped
- REQ-2026-[n] · 06ReturnedClosed
RejectedPartial ApprovedPartial Dispensed
Stock only moves at two moments: when the warehouse physically dispenses, and when it physically accepts a return. Nothing is credited back just because someone said it was coming.
Before / After
Supply Request Form
* Required
Name *
Property *
What do you need? *
How many? *
Submit
did u get my form?
what form
New requestREQ-2026-[n]
Building[Property]
Unit214
RoomBedroom
Item72" curtain rod · B4-03
Qty2
ReasonDamaged
⚠ Unit 214 received this item 9 days ago
Submit request
AfterDrag the divider, or use the arrow keys.
| Task | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Finding an item | Walk the aisles | Search, see the shelf, go get it |
| Requesting stock | Text the manager | Pick property, unit, room, item; photo optional; instant duplicate warning |
| High-value items | Same as everything else | Automatically routed to admin approval |
| Tools going out | Hope they come back | Flagged as returnable; tracked until accepted back |
| Cost of what a property used | A guess | Priced from the actual purchase batch (FIFO) |
| Field staff on a phone | Skipped it | Installed to the home screen, works like an app |
| Who changed what | Nobody knows | Every quantity change logged with the person and the source record |
Roles & permissions
140 permission rules140 on
Signed in as Admin
- Dashboard
- Item Requests
- Inventory
- Orders
- Timesheet
- Users
- Backups
Curtain rod 72"$[x]
Lamp shade$[x]
Smoke detector$[x]
DispenseApproveRun backup
| Permission | Admin | Office | Warehouse | Staff |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| See item costs | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Approve requests | ✓ | ✓ | Partial (first-pass) | — |
| Dispense stock | ✓ | — | ✓ | — |
| Receive shipments | ✓ | — | ✓ | — |
| Edit inventory | ✓ | — | Photo & shelf only | — |
| Submit requests | ✓ | — | — | ✓ |
| Log timesheets | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Run backups | ✓ | — | — | — |
Roughly 140 individual permission switches sit behind these four columns. Accounts can additionally be scoped to specific properties and inventory categories, so two people with the same role may see different data.
Why the cost is real
Lot 410 @ $[d]
Lot 38 @ $[c]
Lot 26 @ $[b]
Lot 1 · oldest3 @ $[a]
Cost of this dispense
3 × $[a] + 2 × $[b]
Press Dispense 5 to run it.
Oldest batch first. Reported costs stay accurate even as supplier prices move.
Results
What changed
[X]%
reduction in unexplained stock loss
[X] hrs/week
saved locating and reconciling inventory
[X]%
of field staff submitting requests through the app within the first month
[X] / [X]
properties and units managed in one system
Unexplained stock loss, monthly
Sample data · points [n]A warehouse you can search.
Every item has a shelf, a photo, a quantity and a history. Low-stock alerts fire before something runs out, not after.
Losses you can trace.
Returnable tools are tracked from dispense to acceptance. Damage is logged with photos and automatically spins up a replacement request and a maintenance task. Every count change names who made it and links to why.
Numbers the office can trust.
FIFO costing means “what did this property use last month” is a real figure. Approval thresholds mean high-value items get a second look. Nightly backups to two destinations mean the data is safe.
[Quote from Tropilux about the result — e.g. “For the first time we can actually see what’s in the building.”]
[Name, Role, Tropilux]
Delivery
How we delivered
- #01[Mon YYYY]
Discovery
Mapped every existing form, spreadsheet and text-message workflow. Wrote the permission matrix before writing any code.
- #02[Mon YYYY]
Design
Figma prototype of every module, reviewed with warehouse, office and field staff.
- #03[Mon YYYY]
Build
Real-time backend, five-role permission system, 15 modules, PWA install flow, photo pipeline, email notifications.
- #04[Mon YYYY]
Hardening
Role-by-role QA, live-update resilience, dual-destination backups with restore drills.
- #05[Mon YYYY]
Launch & documentation
Shipped with a complete user manual covering every screen, status and edge case.
Tech & details
Spec sheet
Packing slip
Tropilux Supply · v1
- Platform
- Web app, installable as a PWA on iOS and Android
- Real-time
- Persistent connection with automatic reconnect; every list screen live-updates
- Permissions
- 5 roles, ~140 rules, per-user property and category scoping
- Costing
- FIFO purchase lots; per-dispense pricing at actual batch cost
- Imports/Exports
- CSV and XLSX in; CSV and PDF out (with price-free versions for non-financial roles)
- Photos
- Auto-compressed, archived rather than deleted
- Notifications
- Configurable per-person email grid with live previews
- Backups
- Nightly, to Google Drive and cloud storage, with pre-restore snapshots
- Documentation
- Full user manual at manual.tropilux.com
Qty 1 · ShippedPage 1 / 1
Documentation
Every screen, every status, every edge case — documented.
We shipped Tropilux with a complete user manual: sign-in and navigation, all fifteen modules, a roles-at-a-glance reference, and a status glossary. It's public.
PendingPending Admin ApprovalApprovedPartial DispensedPending ReturnedDraftOrderedPartly InNeeds InfoDisposition SuggestedExecutedAging
Running your operation on spreadsheets and group texts?
We build systems like this for companies that have outgrown their tools.
● Live floor
Listening for activity…