Khata runs on four screens, and they are not four versions of one thing. Each is good at a job the others are bad at, and choosing badly between them is how people end up doing an hour of work that should have taken five minutes.
The four surfaces
| Surface | Who opens it | Best at | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Android app | The owner, at the counter | Selling, offline, scanning, printing | Free |
| iPhone & iPad app | The owner, at the counter | The same, on iOS | Free |
| Web dashboard | The owner, at a desk | Bulk edits, long lists, a big screen | On request |
| Staff portal | Staff, with an ID and PIN | Their own tasks and attendance | Sign-in only |
What a phone is genuinely better at
It is easy to assume the desktop is the serious one and the phone is the convenient one. At a shop counter that is backwards.
- It finishes the sale without a connection. A browser cannot.
- The camera is the barcode scanner, so there is no second device to buy or charge.
- It pairs with the Bluetooth printer already sitting on your counter.
- It is in your hand when a customer asks what they owe, which is when you need the answer.
What a desk is genuinely better at
Every job in this list has the same shape: many rows, one decision. That is what a phone is worst at, because a phone is built for one thing at a time.
- A supplier raises prices and forty products need updating in one sitting.
- An import came in dirty and needs cleaning before it is trusted.
- You want to read a year of takings on a screen wide enough to see the shape of it.
- You are working through a long list of old balances, deciding which to chase and which to write off.
The dashboard presents these as grids — spreadsheet-style, keyboard-driven, edit many and save once. That is the whole argument for it, and it is a good argument only if the paragraph above described your week.
When not to ask for it
If you have never wanted to change fifty things at once, the dashboard will not improve your day. It is a different shape of tool for a different shape of problem, and a shop that sells, collects and counts on a phone is not missing anything by staying there.
A reasonable way to decide
- 1
Run entirely on the app for a month
Almost every shop finds this is enough. If it is, you are done, and it costs nothing.
- 2
Write down the job that made you want a bigger screen
Not 'I want the dashboard' — the actual task. 'I re-price 60 items every quarter' is a reason. 'It feels more professional' is not, and will not survive contact with the extra login.
- 3
Ask, and say what the job is
Access is arranged per business through the contact page. Describing the task lets us tell you honestly whether the dashboard solves it, and sometimes the answer is that it does not.