Anan — Marketplace Development and Dedicated Engineering Partnership

Project Type

Odoo-Based Marketplace Development, Native Mobile Applications and Ongoing Staff Augmentation

Technology Platform

Odoo 17, Custom Marketplace Modules, REST APIs, Web Portals, Initial PWA, Native Android and iOS Applications, Payment Integrations and Push Notifications

Services Provided

Marketplace Workflow Design, Custom Development, Provider and Parent Portals, Booking and Payment Integration, Commission and Settlement Workflows, Native Mobile Development and Dedicated Engineering Support

Building a Marketplace Around Families and Activity Providers

Anan connects families in Saudi Arabia with activities for their children, including classes, camps, workshops and sports. Parents need to find a suitable experience, select a schedule and book for a particular child. Providers need to publish activities, control capacity, manage attendance and understand their financial position.

The marketplace must connect these responsibilities while managing payment, commission, cancellations and settlement. An activity booking is therefore both a customer experience and an operational commitment involving several parties.

MindSynth Technologies built Anan's Odoo-based marketplace foundation and continued its development beyond the initial project. The platform evolved from web and PWA access into native applications for parents and service providers on both Android and iOS. Three dedicated MindSynth software engineers now work with Anan's founders through an ongoing staff-augmentation arrangement.

The Business Challenge

Anan's operating model differs from an ordinary online product sale in several practical ways.

Availability belongs to a scheduled activity. The same provider may offer different dates and time slots, each with its own capacity. A parent can purchase on behalf of a child, so the purchaser and attendee must remain distinct. Providers are independent businesses, and amounts collected from a parent must be allocated and settled according to the marketplace's commercial arrangements.

The platform needed to coordinate:

·       Provider registration, documentation and approval.

·       Activity listings, schedules and available seats.

·       Parent accounts and child profiles.

·       Discovery, eligibility, booking and payment.

·       Provider-specific commission and settlement information.

·       Cancellations, refunds and related financial adjustments.

·       Attendance check-in and booking history.

·       Separate experiences for parents, providers and administrators.

·       Consistent information across the website and mobile applications.

The central requirement was transaction continuity. A booking must remain connected to the right schedule, child, provider and payment as it moves through the marketplace.

A Phased Implementation Foundation

The initial agreement in August 2024 established two project phases. The first covered the Odoo ERP and core marketplace environment, including parent and provider portals, activity booking, online payment and administration. The second extended the marketplace features and included PWA-based mobile access.

The early scope established the primary user journeys: a provider applies and submits activities for approval; a parent discovers an activity and completes a booking; the platform maintains the resulting operational and financial records.

After completing the initial phases, MindSynth continued development with Anan. Operations began in April 2025, and the product subsequently expanded through native mobile applications and further improvements to payments, settlement and marketplace management.

The PWA and native applications are separate stages of this progression. MindSynth initially developed the PWA, then later developed native apps for both parents and service providers, with each experience available on Android and iOS.

A Shared Marketplace Architecture

The platform uses Odoo 17 and custom modules to manage its marketplace-specific processes. Provider records, parent and child profiles, activity schedules, bookings, payments and financial records are connected through the backend.

Purpose-built portals give different users the information and actions relevant to their responsibilities. Providers work with their own activities and bookings; parents manage their family accounts and purchases; administrators oversee the marketplace.

REST APIs connect the native applications with the underlying business services. This allows mobile interfaces to develop around the needs of each stakeholder while using the same operational records as the web environment.

The shared architecture matters when a booking changes. Availability, customer information and payment status need to remain consistent across the places where the transaction is viewed and managed.

Provider Onboarding and Approval

MindSynth developed an onboarding process for individual providers and companies. The registration journey captures provider information and supporting documents before the application moves through internal review.

The provider-management environment supports:

·       Registration and mobile verification.

·       Application information and document capture.

·       Review and approval stages.

·       Provider profiles and branch information.

·       Subscription and commercial settings.

·       Activity submission and publication control.

·       Provider staff access within the appropriate account.

The approval process separates an application from an active marketplace presence. Administrators can review the provider's information before granting the access needed to manage and publish its services.

Provider-level commercial settings also connect onboarding with finance. Commission and relevant fee settings can be maintained against the provider so the marketplace's financial processes reflect the correct relationship.

Activity Schedules and Seat Availability

The booking engine represents activities through schedules and seat capacity. The delivered model accommodates different scheduling patterns, including individual sessions, date ranges and recurring time slots.

Activity information connects the provider, description, location, schedule and booking conditions. Capacity is reviewed against bookings so availability refers to the selected session rather than an undifferentiated stock quantity.

The solution includes controls for simultaneous booking requests. Schedule-level checks and locking mechanisms are designed to protect seat availability while bookings are processed. This addresses a practical marketplace risk: two customers can reach checkout while viewing the same remaining capacity.

The purpose of these controls is to maintain the relationship between what a customer is offered and what the provider can deliver, including periods when several customers are booking at the same time.

Parent Accounts and Child Profiles

Parents can maintain child profiles and associate each booked seat with the relevant child. The activity record and child information support eligibility checks, booking history and attendance handling.

The parent experience includes:

·       Account registration and authentication.

·       Child-profile management.

·       Activity browsing and search.

·       Location-based discovery.

·       Schedule and seat selection.

·       Booking history and status.

·       Saved activities, ratings and reviews.

·       Booking-related requests and notifications.

This structure preserves the distinction between the person paying and the person attending. It also gives a parent a more useful view of family bookings than a general purchase history that lacks child-level context.

Payments and Commission Accounting

Anan's payment workflow must distinguish the amount collected at checkout from the amounts attributable to providers and the marketplace. MindSynth developed the financial processes around this agency-model relationship.

The implemented accounting design connects:

·       Customer payment records.

·       Marketplace service fees.

·       Provider clearing balances.

·       Provider-specific commission calculations.

·       Commission invoices and adjustments.

·       Gateway charges and settlement information.

Provider configuration supports the applicable commercial terms, including percentage or fixed commission arrangements. Bilingual financial document formats support the presentation needs of the platform's Arabic- and English-language environment.

The practical result is a traceable relationship between the booking and its financial consequences. Finance can review what was collected, what belongs to the provider and what is attributable to the marketplace without treating the entire checkout amount as the platform's own income.

Cancellations and Refunds

A cancellation affects more than the visible booking status. Capacity may need to return to the schedule, a payment refund may be required and the accounting records must reflect the change.

MindSynth connected these activities through a cancellation workflow that supports selected-seat cancellation and the associated financial adjustments. The process links released seats with gateway refunds, provider clearing adjustments and commission credit notes as applicable.

Confirmation documents communicate the change to the affected parties. Keeping these actions related helps operations and finance work from the same cancellation record rather than maintaining separate interpretations of the transaction.

Payment Integration and Reconciliation

The platform initially used Tap, with later development introducing Moyasar payment integration. The integration work covered web checkout and the mobile payment path, along with refund and reconciliation handling.

Payment verification checks the gateway transaction against the marketplace order. Relevant checks include the payment amount, currency, status and order association. Duplicate-reference controls and recovery processes address retries and transactions that remain pending.

These mechanisms focus on the handover between payment and booking confirmation. A gateway response must be related to the correct order before the platform can safely treat the purchase as complete.

Continued payment development demonstrates the value of an engineering team familiar with the marketplace's financial and booking behaviour as the integration environment changes.

Provider Operations and QR Check In

The provider portal gives activity businesses an operational workspace for their listings, schedules, bookings and financial information. Providers can submit new activities and changes for review while monitoring their own marketplace activity.

QR-based check-in connects attendance with the booking. The provider can identify the relevant seats and record attendance for the associated child, including partial check-in where only part of a booking is attending.

The portal also supports review of sales, settlement information and customer ratings. Providers receive access to their own operational position through a dedicated interface rather than unrestricted access to the administrative backend.

Native Applications for Both Stakeholder Groups

Following the initial PWA, MindSynth developed native mobile applications for the two principal marketplace audiences:

·       Parent application for Android.

·       Parent application for iOS.

·       Service-provider application for Android.

·       Service-provider application for iOS.

The parent applications support the family-facing marketplace experience. The service-provider applications give activity businesses a dedicated mobile experience for their role in the platform.

Shared backend services connect these interfaces with account, activity and booking information. Mobile delivery also uses notification services to keep users informed about relevant marketplace activity.

This development extended Anan beyond a mobile-accessible website. Each stakeholder group gained a native application experience while the underlying marketplace continued to operate through connected business records.

Management Reporting and Provider Settlement

The management and finance environment brings marketplace activity into views that support operational decisions. Reporting covers sales, commissions, cancellations, refunds and provider performance, together with gateway fees and settlement status.

Provider statements organize the amounts relevant to a settlement period and support the payout review process. Exportable information gives finance a practical basis for working through provider positions and investigating the underlying activity.

These capabilities help the team distinguish different commercial questions: how much activity the marketplace is processing, which providers contribute that activity, what has been refunded and what remains to be settled.

Three Dedicated Engineers Working with the Founders

MindSynth's relationship with Anan continues through three dedicated software engineers working as augmented staff. The team collaborates directly with the founders on product development and ongoing improvement.

The arrangement gives Anan continuing engineering capacity from people familiar with the platform's booking, provider and financial workflows. Founder priorities and operational feedback can be discussed in the context of the existing product rather than starting each enhancement with a new team.

The collaboration focuses on improving stakeholder experiences and supporting the business's commercial goals. The founders bring the product priorities and commercial direction; the engineering team contributes the implementation knowledge needed to develop and refine the platform.

The engagement has therefore developed from a defined implementation into a sustained product partnership, with MindSynth remaining involved as Anan's operational needs evolve.

Operational Impact

The platform has established a connected foundation for Anan's marketplace operations:

·       Providers can apply, submit activities and manage their marketplace presence.

·       Families can discover activities and associate bookings with the correct child.

·       Scheduled seat capacity is connected with the booking process.

·       Payment records remain related to commissions, provider balances and settlement.

·       Cancellations coordinate operational changes with financial adjustments.

·       QR check-in connects purchased seats with attendance.

·       Native apps serve both parents and providers on Android and iOS.

·       Management and finance can review marketplace and provider activity.

·       Three dedicated engineers continue to support product development with the founders.

A Continuing Marketplace Engineering Partnership

Anan demonstrates MindSynth's ability to work across marketplace architecture, operational workflows, mobile applications and ongoing engineering delivery. The project required the team to connect the customer experience with the provider's responsibilities and the financial processes behind each booking.

The resulting platform supports a live business that began operations in April 2025 and continues to develop. MindSynth's contribution includes the original implementation, the progression from PWA to native applications and a dedicated team working with the founders on what comes next.

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