Tijara Tech FZE

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of AV Landscaping, a Dubai-based landscape contractor with over 18 years in the UAE. We deliver garden design and construction, maintenance contracts, irrigation, paving, pools, water features, lighting, and carpentry for residential and commercial clients across the Emirates.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tijara Tech FZE?

We needed to prepare for UAE e-invoicing properly. We’d been hearing about the mandate for a while and knew our manual invoicing wouldn’t survive it. We wanted that handled correctly rather than patched together at the last minute.Additionally, we wanted to get the business out of spreadsheets. Quotations were rebuilt from scratch in Word every time, invoices were typed by hand, and the same information was being entered three or four times. We wanted one system where a quotation becomes a project and then an invoice without anyone retyping anything.Moreover, we wanted visibility on our projects. We run multiple sites at once, from Arabian Ranches to Sharjah, and we couldn’t tell what a job had actually cost until well after it finished. We wanted to see progress and margin while the work was still running, not months later.Lastly, employee management came in alongside that. With teams spread across sites, attendance and leave records were on paper, and we wanted them in the same system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tijara Tech FZE handled the full Odoo implementation, from mapping our process through to go-live and training. They started by sitting with us and walking the way we actually work, from the first site visit to the final invoice, before configuring anything. That mattered because landscaping doesn’t run like a standard trading business.The main deliverables were sales and quotations, invoicing and UAE e-invoicing compliance, project management, and employee management. For sales and quotations, Tijara Tech FZE created templated quotations for our service lines, design and build, maintenance contracts, irrigation, paving, pools, and so on. Our team could build a quote from the system instead of a blank Word file. Quotations could be converted straight into a project and an invoice.For invoicing and UAE e-invoicing compliance, Tijara Tech FZE set up the invoice structure to meet the UAE requirements properly, with the data fields captured correctly at the source rather than corrected later. They also handled VAT and prepared the whole thing for the mandate instead of scrambling when it reached us.For project management, every job was set up as a project with its own tasks, stages, costs, and invoicing plan. Material and labor costs were posted against the right site, so we could see the margin while the work was running.For employee management, staff records, attendance, and leave were in one place for teams spread across sites, replacing the paper we were keeping in the office.Additionally, Tijara Tech FZE handled data migration from our existing spreadsheets, user roles and permissions, report and dashboard setup, and training for both office staff and supervisors. They stayed available after go-live for the inevitable questions.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 2–5 teammates from Tijara Tech FZE.

How did you come to work with Tijara Tech FZE?

We found them through a referral. We chose them over other options because they were close to my geographic location, their pricing fit our budget, they offered good value for the cost, and they were referred to me.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June–August 2026.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The biggest result was that we were ready for the UAE e-invoicing mandate instead of worrying about it. Our invoices were structured correctly at the source, with the right data captured on every line. When our phase comes in, we won’t have to rebuild anything. Most contractors our size are still on Word and Excel invoices and will find that out the hard way.Moreover, VAT returns went from a week of pain to a straightforward job. It used to mean pulling invoices from three places, reconciling against spreadsheets, and hoping nothing was missed. Now, output and input VAT sit in the system, and the return data comes straight out of Odoo. What took us 4–5 days now takes about three hours, and our accountant has stopped chasing us for missing documents.Manual work was largely gone. A quotation became a project, the project generated the invoice, and nobody retyped anything. The same job details used to be entered four times across a quote, a tracking sheet, and an invoice. Now, it’s entered once.Additionally, quotation turnaround dropped from 2–3 days to the same day, often within an hour of the site visit. That has won us jobs we’d previously have lost to whoever replied first.Moreover, month-end invoicing went from three days to half a day. Because invoices now go out as work progresses rather than at the end, our collections improved by roughly two weeks on average.Errors dropped sharply. We used to reissue a handful of invoices every month over wrong figures or missing details. Now, it’s close to zero.

How did the engagement with Tijara Tech FZE impact your business?

Our admin team used to spend the bulk of their week on data entry, building quotations in Word, retyping job details into tracking sheets, and then typing them again into invoices. That’s roughly two full days a week back across the team. They haven’t been sitting idle with it; they’ve taken on the follow-ups and client coordination we never had time to do properly before.Month end is the clearest example. It used to take over the office for three days. Now, it’s a half day, and nobody dreads it.For me as a manager, the change is not having to ask three people for an answer. I can see which jobs are running, what has been invoiced and what hasn’t, and where a project sits against its cost, without waiting for someone to update a spreadsheet.On site, it’s lighter but real. Supervisors log attendance in the system instead of sending paper to the office, which took a recurring chore off them and off our payroll run.The honest part is that the first few weeks were harder, not easier. People had to learn a new way of working, and there was grumbling. It took about a month before it felt faster than the old way.Additionally, our quotation win rate has improved. We haven’t tracked it precisely, but replying the same day instead of two days later has clearly won us jobs, particularly on residential work where the client is calling three contractors and going with whoever comes back first and looks organized. A proper printed quotation from the system also reads more professionally than the Word document we used to send.Moreover, we can now see our numbers by service line. Maintenance, design and build, paving, pools, all separated. That showed us maintenance contracts were being underpriced, and we adjusted rates on renewals. We could never see that before because it all sat in one pile.Nothing falls through the cracks anymore. We used to lose an occasional job between the site visit and the quote or forget a maintenance invoice for a month. Both are tracked now.Additionally, audit and documentation are far easier. When our accountant or an auditor asks for backup on a transaction, it’s a two-minute job rather than digging through folders.Lastly, onboarding new office staff is quicker. The process lives in the system now instead of in one person’s head, which for a contractor our size is a real risk removed.

How did Tijara Tech FZE perform from a project management standpoint?

Tijara Tech FZE’s project management was well-run and, importantly for us, well-paced. They broke the project into stages rather than disappearing for two months and coming back with a finished system. First, we mapped the process, then configuration, then invoicing and e-invoicing setup, then projects and employees. We reviewed each point before moving on, so we always knew where things stood.On timing, they held their side. The overall go-live moved by about two weeks, and that was on us. We were slow getting our old data cleaned up and handed over, and we were slow getting our supervisors free for training during a busy period on site. They flagged both early and told us plainly what it would do to the date, rather than letting it quietly drift and then blaming us at the end.Communication was practical. We had a weekly call, used WhatsApp for the day-to-day, and got replies the same day. There was no jargon, which mattered because we’re a landscaping company, not an IT department.The part I appreciated most was them pushing back when we asked for something that wasn’t a good idea. A couple of times, we wanted to replicate exactly how our spreadsheets worked, and they explained why that would cause us problems later. They were right.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Two things stood out.First, they understood contracting. Landscaping doesn’t run like a shop. A job starts as a site visit, becomes a quotation, turns into a project with variations halfway through, gets invoiced in stages, and has labor and material costs landing against it the whole time. Most software people try to force that into a standard sales flow, and it breaks. Tijara Tech FZE walked our process before touching Odoo and configured it around how we actually work. Our quotations, our service lines, our stages.Second, they had e-invoicing knowledge. Plenty of firms will sell you Odoo. Far fewer understand the UAE compliance side well enough to structure the data correctly from day one rather than patching it later. Tijara Tech FZE treated the mandate as something to get right upfront, not an upsell for next year. That’s the part I would have got badly wrong with a cheaper vendor.Additionally, they trained our people properly and didn’t leave us dependent on them. That’s unusual. It would have been easy to keep us calling for every small change.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Two things, neither of them serious.First, the training for our site supervisors could have been pitched lower. Our office staff picked it up fine, but the men running the sites weren’t comfortable with software and needed it simpler and more repetitive than they got. A short printed card or a recorded walkthrough in the languages our crews actually speak would have saved a lot of questions in the first month. Tijara Tech FZE answered every one of them without complaint, but it’s the kind of thing that’s better handled upfront.Second, we could have scoped the next phase earlier. Once we were live, we immediately started thinking about procurement and equipment tracking. It would have helped to have that sketched out from the beginning, even roughly, so we knew what was coming and could budget for it. We’re discussing it now, so it’s getting sorted, but it would have been useful to see the full road at the start rather than one stage at a time.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Some of the friction was ours. We were slow with our data and slow to free people up for training, and that made their job harder than it needed to be.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of Dakiya

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Dakiya is a handmade memory studio in Dubai, licensed with the Department of Economy and Tourism. We make bespoke 3D memory frames, hand-sculpted clay keepsakes and gift hampers, run a live doodle and sketch booth at weddings and corporate events across the UAE, and post the monthly Dakiya Mail Club. We also handle corporate gifting, murals and branded walls for teams. Everything is made by hand in the studio. I'm the founder and the artist behind the work.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Tijara Tech FZE to accomplish?

• Odoo ERP Implementation
• Website Development

SOLUTION

How did you find Tijara Tech FZE?

Online Search

Why did you select Tijara Tech FZE over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Tijara Tech FZE were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Tijaratech built our website from scratch. We came to them with a studio, a lot of work photographed on Instagram, and no proper home for it. The brief was to make something that felt handmade rather than templated, and to get enquiries into WhatsApp where we actually talk to customers. 
Key deliverables: 
1. A custom WordPress theme designed for the studio, not a bought template. The look, typography and Urdu and Arabic type were built around our work. 
2. Five service sections: 3D memory frames, handmade gifts and keepsakes, the live doodle and sketch booth, the Dakiya Mail Club, and corporate gifting for teams. 
3. Gallery and lightbox system across those sections, close to eighty pieces of our work loaded, captioned and organised so we can add more ourselves. 
4. An interactive "anatomy of a frame" feature that breaks a piece into its four build layers, which explains our process better than any paragraph we could write. 
5. A commission tool that walks a customer through format, memory, song, names and date, then compiles it into a ready brief and opens it in our WhatsApp. 
6. Every enquiry now arrives already structured. WhatsApp routing throughout the site, including a separate corporate enquiry path. 
6. Mobile-first build, page speed work, SEO and social preview setup, hosting and domain, and a handover so we can update content without calling them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Traffic is up around 50% on where we were when everything ran through Instagram alone, and it's better traffic. People land on the frames or the doodle booth page, read what's involved, then message.
• The enquiry side went from fully manual to fully structured. Every commission used to start as "how much?" in our DMs and take five or six messages before we knew what the person actually wanted. Now the brief arrives complete, format, memory, song, names and date, straight into WhatsApp. That's cut our response time from a day or two down to minutes, and the first reply is a quote instead of questions.
• Corporate enquiries came from almost nothing to a steady flow. Teams can now see the gifting, the booth and the mural work in one place instead of us sending photos one at a time.
• Conversion improved too. Because people arrive already understanding the process and the level of detail, far fewer enquiries drop off at the pricing conversation.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• Straightforward, which is what we wanted. We agreed the scope up front, then worked in stages, structure first, then design, then the galleries and the commission tool. Each stage came to us for review before they moved on, so there were no surprises at the end.
• Timelines held. Where something slipped, it was usually because we were slow sending photographs or copy, and they told us plainly that the date would move rather than letting it drift quietly.
• The responsiveness was the best part. We're a studio, not a tech company, so we'd send feedback like "this feels too clean, it should look more handmade" and they'd come back with something that got it. They asked questions about how we actually work before building anything, which is why the commission tool matches our real process instead of a generic contact form.
• Communication was mostly WhatsApp and calls, which suited us. Replies came the same day. After launch they didn't disappear either, small fixes were handled quickly and they showed us how to update the galleries ourselves.

What was your primary form of communication with Tijara Tech FZE?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

• They took the trouble to understand what we actually make. Most developers would have built us a shop with a cart and a checkout, and it would have been wrong. Our work is commissioned, every piece is quoted individually, and the conversation matters more than the transaction. Tijaratech saw that and designed around it. The commission tool walks a customer through the memory, the song, the names and the date, compiles it into a proper brief, then hands it to our WhatsApp so Aeman replies with a quote instead of twenty questions. 
• The other thing was the craft in the build itself. The "anatomy of a frame" section breaks a piece into its four layers and explains our process better than we ever managed to in words. Nobody asked them for that. They came up with it after listening to how we describe our own work.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Tijara Tech FZE could have done differently?

• Honestly, very little. If I'm reaching, we'd have liked a short video walkthrough of the admin side alongside the handover session, just so we could rewatch it whenever we add a new gallery instead of relying on notes. They answer quickly when we ask, but having it recorded would save us both a message.
• The other thing is more a wish than a criticism. Once the site was live we started thinking about online ordering for the Mail Club and the smaller gift items, which wasn't in the original scope. It would have been useful to have that mapped out from the start as a phase two, so we knew what it would involve before we asked. We're discussing it with them now. Tijaratech built our site around how we actually work, not a generic template. Commission enquiries now arrive structured on WhatsApp, traffic is up 50%, and they still answer months later.