Shared Attendance and Wage Ledger for Domestic Workers
A beginner final year project that builds a mobile app where a household and its domestic worker keep one shared record of days worked, leave, advances and wages paid. Both sides see the same entries, with a picture-first Urdu and English interface, so month-end disputes about pay are settled by a record, not memory.
Beginner
Achievable by one student in a semester with familiar tools.1 semester · 1 strong student, or 2 semesters · 2 students
7 to ship
3 optional extrasSuggested stack
What you should ship
- Two-sided app: an employer and a worker link accounts with a one-time code and share one ledger
- Daily attendance marked by either side, with the other side able to confirm or dispute each day
- Advances, bonuses and deductions recorded as entries, and a month-end wage calculation both sides can see
- Picture and icon-led worker screens in Urdu and English, with right-to-left layout and large touch targets
- Month statement exported as an image or PDF for the worker to keep
- Offline marking with sync, tested by switching the phone to airplane mode
- Usability test with at least 5 workers and 5 employers, reporting task completion and errors
If you have time left
- Voice notes on disputed days so a worker who cannot type can explain
- One worker linked to several households with a combined monthly view
- Optional reminder to the employer when salary day passes without a payment entry
The problem with how domestic work is recorded
Millions of households employ a cook, cleaner, driver or nanny, and almost none keep a proper record. Days off, half days, advances taken for a family emergency and a bonus at Eid are remembered differently by each side. At month end the employer deducts for days the worker remembers as approved leave, or the worker says an advance was already repaid. The worker usually has less power in that conversation and no written record to point to.
This is not unique to one country. Household work is informal in much of South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and even where rules exist, record keeping is left to the employer.
What already exists and the gap
- DOL-Timesheet: a free app from the US Department of Labor that lets a worker log their own hours and calculate wages; single-sided and built around US overtime rules.
- DoEmploy: payroll and attendance for small businesses and household employers; employer-centred.
- Ponto Legal: a Brazilian clock-in app for domestic workers with monthly timesheets; tied to Brazilian regulation.
- Generic attendance apps: one person records, the other has no view.
The gap is a shared ledger that both sides see and confirm, designed for a worker who may read little and uses a cheap phone, with no country-specific payroll law built in.
What you build
- Employer: adds a worker, sets monthly or daily wage and paid leave, marks or confirms days, records advances and payments.
- Worker: sees the same calendar, marks arrival, confirms or disputes entries, sees what is owed, keeps month statements.
Flows: link accounts with a code, daily marking, confirm or dispute, month close, statement.
The technically interesting part
This is a beginner project, so the interest is in design and data rules rather than algorithms.
Two-party agreement on data. Every entry has an author and a status: proposed, confirmed or disputed. Nothing either side writes can silently change the other side's view; edits create a new version with history. Model this carefully in Firestore and enforce it in security rules, not only in the app. Show evaluators a rules test that proves an employer cannot edit a confirmed entry.
Low-literacy interface. Workers should be able to use the app with icons, colours and numbers alone. Follow accessibility guidance on contrast and touch target size, test right-to-left layout, and measure whether workers complete tasks without help.
How to evaluate it
- Task completion rate and time for five core tasks with at least 5 workers and 5 employers.
- Security rules test suite covering who can create, confirm, dispute and edit which entries.
- Offline test: mark a week of days offline on two phones, reconnect, and check both ledgers match.
- Accessibility check of worker screens against WCAG contrast and target size guidance.
Suggested plan
- Weeks 1 to 2: talk to workers and employers; list the real disputes they have.
- Weeks 3 to 5: data model with entry status and history; security rules and tests.
- Weeks 6 to 9: employer and worker screens, linking, attendance, advances.
- Weeks 10 to 12: month close, statements, Urdu localisation.
- Weeks 13 to 15: usability test and report.
Path to a product
Free for workers always. Employers with several staff (larger homes, small guest houses, clinics with cleaning staff) could pay a small yearly fee. A realistic first partner is a worker placement agency or an NGO working on domestic worker rights that wants its members to keep records. Scale by adding languages and regional wage templates.
Scope warning
Do not process salary payments in the app. Do not give legal advice or encode labour law. Do not add location tracking of workers; it changes the power balance you are trying to fix.
Learn what you need on Sefism
- Mobile roadmap : Flutter and mobile basics in order.
- Mobile cheat sheet : navigation, state and offline cache patterns.
- Firebase documentation : Firestore offline cache and security rules.
- WCAG quick reference : contrast and touch target rules for the worker screens.
- Material Design 3 : components that already meet size and state guidance.
Get help with this idea
Most of the value here comes from getting the entry status model and the worker screens right. A mentor can help you cut the scope to what your team can finish, choose between the stack options above, and design an evaluation your examiners will respect. You still build it; the help is on decisions, not code.
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