Release v1.1 · July 2026

Now it runs the whole distance.

v1.0 gave you everything from kickoff to sign-off. v1.1 adds the front door: a stranger finds your intake form or booking link, becomes a lead on your pipeline, signs your proposal — and the work that follows lands on a calendar every role can read. Here's what's new, then every foundation module in detail.

New in v1.1

Client Intake & Lead Pipeline

Every workspace gets a public intake form on its own domain — enquiries land on a six-stage pipeline, not in an inbox.

  • Public intake form at /inquire — no account needed to enquire
  • Six-stage board: new → contacted → qualified → proposal → won / lost
  • Instant owner alerts — toast, push and email on every enquiry
  • Won leads convert into real client records in one click

Proposals with E-signature

Priced offers your prospects sign at an unguessable link — with the same acceptance discipline as contracts.

  • Line items, tax and discounts — the exact arithmetic invoices use
  • Share tokens stored hashed, shown once, revocable by design
  • Typed-name acceptance recorded with IP, timestamp and a content fingerprint
  • A changed offer can never be signed under an old link

Calendar & Meetings

Milestone deadlines, task due dates, invoice dates, retainer runs and dispute deadlines — finally in one view, per role.

  • One month view on all four surfaces, scoped to what each role may see
  • Schedule meetings with a project, client and attendee attached
  • Every meeting exports as .ics for Google, Outlook or Apple Calendar
  • Deadline health carries through — overdue and at-risk read at a glance

Public Booking Link

A Calendly-style booking page on your own domain — prospects pick a slot, you confirm it, the pipeline gets a lead.

  • Declare your weekly availability and slot length from the calendar
  • Open slots are thinned by your existing meetings automatically
  • Requests arrive as pending — nothing writes into your calendar uninvited
  • Every booking creates a lead, so no conversation gets lost

Task Boards under Milestones

The working layer beneath every milestone — assignable, movable, due-dated — without ever touching earned progress.

  • Checklist and kanban readings of the same tasks, on all three surfaces
  • Assign to anyone on the project; developers can claim unowned tasks
  • Approved milestones freeze their checklist — it's part of the sign-off
  • Progress stays earned from client approval, never self-reported

Contracts, Timesheets & Ratings

The trust layer: hiring is an offer you accept, the agreement is signed, hours are approved, finished work is rated.

  • Engagements: offers with rate, budget and weekly caps — accepted, not assumed
  • Generated contracts, e-signed by both sides and frozen with a SHA-256
  • Timesheet approval turns reviewed hours into invoices
  • Public developer profiles carry ratings from signed-off work

Dispute Centre

Disagreements get a record, a deadline, an evidence thread and a way up — instead of dying in chat.

  • Raise a dispute on any contested milestone, from either side
  • Response deadlines with automatic escalation if silence wins
  • Evidence attachments on a private, participation-checked disk
  • Escalated cases reach the platform team with the full thread

Retainers, Tax & Reminders

The commercial basics, on autopilot: recurring invoices, real tax and discount lines, and dunning that never forgets.

  • Make any invoice a weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly retainer
  • Tax percentages and flat discounts with the arithmetic shown on the PDF
  • Due-soon and overdue reminders send themselves, throttled politely
  • Every generated invoice is a real invoice — same rails, same records

Custom Domains that Serve

Your portal on your own domain — verified, routed and link-stable, so your brand is the only one your people see.

  • DNS verification proves ownership before a domain ever serves
  • Magic links, invites, pushes and PDFs all stay on your domain
  • The platform subdomain keeps working as a fallback, always
  • Guests on your domain land on your login — never ours

Permissions & Access

Five grantable capabilities per team member, and a verified email behind every account — honest access, not honor-system access.

  • Per-member grants for projects, clients, invoices, time and team
  • Role defaults that owners can tighten or widen per person
  • Refusals are enforced with 403s, not hidden buttons
  • Every signup proves its email with a one-time code before an account exists

Knowledge Base with Article Pages

Help is content the operator edits — searchable, audience-scoped, and every answer has a URL support can point at.

  • Answers scoped per surface: owners, clients and developers each see theirs
  • Searchable accordion plus a full page per article, with permalinks
  • Related-article suggestions keep people reading, not asking
  • New answers ship from the admin panel — no deploy needed

Your Data, Portable

Share a file with anyone through an expiring link, zip a project's documents, or export the whole book as CSVs.

  • Expiring share links (1 / 7 / 30 days) — revocable, download-counted, on your domain
  • "Download all as zip" on every project's files, participation-checked
  • Seven CSV exports of your own records, gated per capability
  • Formula-escaped cells, so a spreadsheet can never be a payload

The foundation · v1.0

Projects & Milestone Modules

Break every engagement into modules with weights, budgets and due dates — the same rhythm top freelance platforms run on.

  • Unlimited milestone modules per project with % weights and amounts
  • Start → submit → approve/request-changes delivery loop
  • Auto-approve window keeps silent clients from blocking work
  • Reusable templates, velocity stats and delivery analytics

Reviews & Approvals

Every deliverable gets a decision on the record — approve it or send it back with notes, nothing slips through.

  • One-click approve or request changes, with revision tracking
  • Tamper-proof hash-chained timeline of every decision
  • Print-ready project report for stakeholders
  • Disputes freeze a contested module until it's resolved

Documents

Request exactly the file you need, get it checksummed, and keep every version — final means final.

  • Request/fulfil loop with due dates and reminders on autopilot
  • SHA-256 checksummed versions with full history
  • Mark FINAL to lock a document as the signed-off copy
  • Preview images & PDFs in place, organised by category

Payments & Escrow

Fund work up front, release on approval. Both sides see the same money trail — like the platforms pros already trust.

  • Milestone escrow: funds commit before work starts, release on sign-off
  • Self-guarding payment ledger with wallets for every member
  • Stripe checkout with PDF receipts on every transaction
  • Payout requests with hold periods and earnings analytics

Invoicing

Developers raise invoices against real work; owners settle them online. Every invoice carries its story.

  • Raise invoices per project or straight from tracked hours
  • Escrow-aware statuses — draft, sent, funded, paid, refunded
  • Branded PDF invoices and receipts, one click away
  • AI explainer turns any invoice into plain language

Time Tracking

A running timer and honest timesheets — visible to the client as a work diary, billable in one click.

  • Live timer plus manual entries, grouped by day
  • Weekly rhythm chart and per-project totals
  • Client-side work diary keeps everything transparent
  • Unbilled hours → invoice with your remembered rate

Real-time Messages

A WhatsApp-grade chat channel on every project — owners, developers and team, all in the same thread.

  • Reactions, threads, edits, pins, mentions and read receipts
  • Voice notes, images, video and file attachments
  • Typing indicators, presence and unread separators
  • Full-text search across every conversation

Live Notifications & Push

The workspace comes to you — sounds, toasts and real push notifications, even when the tab is closed.

  • Web push on desktop & mobile (PWA installable)
  • Per-project mute, quiet hours and channel preferences
  • Live badges across the header — messages, approvals, payments
  • Branded notifications for white-label portals

AI Copilots

Writing help and instant summaries built into the flow of work — powered by Claude, tuned to your workspace.

  • Milestone suggester drafts a module breakdown from your brief
  • Writing copilots polish briefs, submission notes and messages
  • Catch-up TL;DRs summarise long threads in seconds
  • Review checklists and dispute mediation keep decisions fair

White-label Developer Portal

Your developers work under your brand — your logo, your colours, your domain feel. They never see ours.

  • Magic-link invites — no passwords, one click and they're in
  • Portal carries your logo, brand colour and workspace name
  • Developers see only the projects they're hired for
  • Scoped work portal: submit, chat, track time, raise invoices

Dashboard & Insights

One glance tells you where every project stands — and what needs you today.

  • Live KPI cards with project, review and payment counts
  • Needs-your-attention feed: reviews, requests, invoices
  • Team collaboration board with per-developer progress
  • Project activity chart across the last 7 days

Trust & Security

Bank-grade posture from day one — because client work is business-critical.

  • Row-level tenancy isolation on every single query
  • Hash-chained activity log — tampering breaks the chain, visibly
  • Encrypted credentials vault; nothing sensitive in plain files
  • Rate-limited auth, single-use magic links, full audit trail

On the horizon

Money that moves itself.

Direct developer payouts on connected accounts, deeper pipeline analytics, and integrations with the tools around your work. Same trust rails, less friction.

Start free today
← Back to Approvalane