Shipped
What we're building at Owena, in the open — the newest updates first. Founding partners help steer what comes next.
- Shipped
A new face — the O·W mark and Sovereign Indigo
Owena has a new identity: a mark built from an O (ownership), a W (work) and an arrow (progress — your profit, moving forward), in a deeper, more confident indigo. It's live across the app, the icons on your home screen, sign-in, every email we send — and this site.
- Shipped
Money moments ask twice — and admins see who did what
Recording income, importing a statement and connecting a bank now ask for a confirmation before they touch your books (admins can relax this for teammates — payouts stay guarded, always). Alongside it, an admin activity trail: who recorded money, who imported, who invited or removed someone, filterable by Money, Projects or Team.
- Shipped
Profit you can take away — charts, planned vs actual, one-click export
The profit page got a real redesign: six months of income vs costs per currency, an outstanding-money card, and planned vs actual margin on every project — the plan you quoted against the money that actually moved. And you can now export your financials as a spreadsheet or PDF in one click.
- Shipped
The workspace grew into a real team room
Channels and 1:1 messages now live one click from anywhere, threads work in both, emoji reactions landed on messages and posts, @mentions (including @everyone) notify properly, and the composer finally behaves like one. New members get a short, skippable welcome tour that runs on the real tabs — not screenshots.
- Shipped
Discounts on quotes + bring your Word documents
Quotes now take a percentage or fixed discount that flows honestly into invoices, PDFs and your margin — with a report showing what you're giving away. And the documents you already have get a door in: import .docx proposals, contracts and terms straight into the editor.
- Shipped
Passkeys, prove-it's-you codes — and your data in your hands
Sign in with your device's own lock, and confirm the moments that matter — payouts, changing bank details — with a quick code that proves it's really you. In the same spirit: export your entire workspace in one click, or delete it. Neither will ever sit behind a paywall.
- Shipped
Client communication that runs itself
A visual automation canvas: “when the quote is accepted, send the kickoff email — three days later, the check-in — but only if…”. It ships with starter templates, keeps a per-workflow diary of everything it sent, and the new six-step project wizard bakes communications in from the start. Projects hidden from a client automatically stay silent toward them.
- Shipped
Emails that look like your business, not ours
Your brand colour on every email your business sends, reusable templates with merge variables and attachments, and a delivery log that shows sent → delivered → read (or failed, with the reason). Every outgoing email carries a one-click unsubscribe — because a reminder you can't opt out of is spam.
- Shipped
Retainers that bill themselves + documents that email themselves
A project can now say it bills monthly, quarterly or annually — one tap and its invoice repeats on schedule. And proposals and contracts go to the client as a branded email from your business's name, with replies landing wherever you point them.
- Shipped
One transfer, whole invoice settled
A tester's real client payment drove this one: when a client pays an invoice in a single transfer, your books now record one transaction that matches the bank — and one bank line can settle every remaining stage of an invoice at once. Statement reading also got sharper against real Nigerian bank statements.
- Shipped
Contractors can bring their own team
A contractor can now run an assigned deliverable through their own business — a linked sub-project with its own quote, team and profit, fully theirs. Whether they disclose that to you is their call (visible by default), and their sub-project's records stay theirs even after the link ends.
- Shipped
Nobody lands disconnected
However an invited person signs in — the invite link, a direct sign-in, even after coming back — they now land in the workspace that invited them, asked for their own name and bank details at the door. Removing someone is just as honest: a confirm that states exactly what ends and what survives, access dying immediately, history staying put. Plus drag-and-drop file upload and a “view as client” preview so you see exactly what a client would see before sharing.
- Shipped
Your account number, on the invoice
Save your business's receiving accounts once, attach one or several to any invoice, and they print on the face of it — “bank details shared separately” is retired.
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Your public Owena profile — a track record employers can trust
Every Owena user can now build and publish their own profile page: skills, bio and contacts you write; teams, businesses, reviews and delivery stats assembled from your real work on Owena. It's yours alone — off by default, published only by you, unpublish kills the link instantly, and no business can ever share your profile for you. One name and one face everywhere; when identity verification lands, your verified name takes over automatically.
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Reviews after every project — from the people who were actually there
When a project is marked completed, the owner or lead reviews each person on it, teammates review each other, and the client rates the business through their window. Reviews are append-only — a rating you can quietly edit later is worthless — and they cumulate onto each person's profile with the reviewer's role, never their name. Real reputation, built from real deliveries.
- Shipped
“Done” now has receipts — revision counter + handoff checklist
Two quiet margin leaks, closed: every “request changes” now counts a revision round against the rounds your quote included (amber at the limit, red beyond scope — extra work deserves its own quote), and each deliverable can carry a handoff checklist — source files, licenses, credentials, docs — so approved work actually changes hands instead of boomeranging after payment.
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Invoices that follow up for you — with a stop link for the client
Overdue-balance chasing is now automatic: pick a schedule and a tone (or write your own template), and Owena sends the reminders — pausing the moment an invoice is paid. Every reminder carries a one-tap stop link for the client, because a reminder you can't opt out of is spam. Recurring invoices for retainers landed too: they issue and email themselves on schedule.
- Shipped
Project templates — run the same shape twice without rebuilding it
Save any project as a template — brief, deliverables, quote lines and installment plan — and start the next one from it in a click. The shapes you run every month (brand site, campaign, retainer) stop being rebuilt from scratch.
- Shipped
Owena on your home screen — and faces on your team
The app now installs to your phone or desktop home screen in one tap and opens in its own window, like a native app. Profile pictures landed alongside — your face in the account menu, your team's faces across the workspace.
- Shipped
Connect your bank — the feed pulls itself in
The live app now links your bank account (read-only, via a licensed data partner) and pulls your transactions straight into the matching queue — the same suggest-and-approve flow as statement upload, no file needed. Explicit sync button, never background polling: you decide when Owena looks. Statement upload stays forever as the no-login fallback.
- Shipped
One account, many businesses — and the switcher to match
Run more than one studio? Your businesses now live on one Owena account with a workspace switcher where the logo used to be — the sidebar leads with YOUR business identity, and Owena takes the back seat. Each business is fully isolated: its own projects, team, money and profit.
- Shipped
Invite your team — they add their own verified bank details
No more typing someone else's account number. Add a contractor, staff member or vendor with just a name and email, send them a branded invite (WhatsApp, email or link), and they create their account and enter the bank details they want to be paid into — with the account name checked against the bank. Wrong-account transfers die here.
- Shipped
Import a bank statement — every line matched, you approve
The flagship landed in the live app: upload your statement CSV and Owena matches each line to the right project, invoice or payout — including catching bank charges and shortfalls as their own line so nothing silently disappears. Suggestions are questions, never auto-commits; unmatched lines wait in a review queue until you decide.
- Decided
The wallet waits for its license — reconciliation goes first
We sat down with the payment providers, and the honest answer is that letting agencies spend from wallet balances needs licensing cover we can only earn with traction — so we're not going to fake it. The wallet moves to an interest list inside the app (join it — it directly shapes who we onboard first and speeds up the licensed arrangement), and until then you pay from your own bank with one confirm, exactly as agencies do today. What goes first instead is the thing everyone actually begged for: connect your bank (read-only) or upload a statement, and Owena matches every payment to the right project — you approve in one tap, fees and shortfalls caught, nothing silently dropped. Owena never holds your money. That was true before, and it's the reason this decision was easy.
- Shipped
The Owena wallet — receive, pay and reconcile in one place (prototype)
Design partners kept telling us the same thing: reconciliation is hectic because the money lives in three bank apps. So the prototype now has an optional agency wallet — a dedicated account number for client payments, one-tap contractor payouts that book themselves to the right project, and a live view that waits with you until the bank actually confirms (because Nigerian transfers aren't instant, and pretending otherwise is how money gets lost). Funds sit with a licensed payment partner — never with Owena.
- Decided
Money moves on licensed rails now — why we changed our mind
We used to say Owena never moves money. Partners told us recording wasn't the pain — moving and matching it across bank apps was. So money can now move through Owena on licensed payment rails (custody with the licensed partner, never us), and every naira that does is born reconciled. Paying from your own bank still works exactly as before — one confirm books the cost. The principle stands: your funds never sit with Owena itself.
- Shipped
Channels, threads & richer teamwork in the workspace
The project workspace grew up: purpose-scoped channels (like Slack, with threads that break out into their own panel), the same emoji/file/voice composer everywhere, team search with member profiles, and invites by email or WhatsApp. Clients still never see any of it.
- Shipped
Reconcile from a bank statement — no bank login needed
In the prototype: import your statement (CSV/PDF) and Owena matches every line to a project by its reference, amount and date — you just confirm, and true profit per project falls out. Automatic bank-sync is optional, where your bank is supported. We never bet your reconciliation on one provider, and never touch your money.
- Decided
Reconciliation is the painkiller — profit is the payoff
The pain was never not knowing your profit; it's how hectic reconciling payments across banks, invoices and payouts is. So we make that effortless — profit just appears. Not a ledger you fill in.
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Client access is your call — per project, and masked by default
The workspace is team-only by default, so clients never see it's outsourced. Per project you can invite a client to a scoped view — they can post and see deliverables and progress, but never your team, finances or timeline. Preview exactly what they'd see, and change it any time.
- Shipped
The project workspace — one window per project
Prototype now has Posts (updates, @mentions, voice notes), a Tasks board with deadline reminders you can reschedule by request-and-approval, 1:1 Messages, your Team, and Deliverables where the team submits and you approve or request changes. “Any update?” answers itself.
- Shipped
Pay the team in milestones — budget-aware, non-custodial
Set advances and milestones per contractor. Owena books the cost, shows budget vs paid vs left, and stops you overpaying a line — then you send it from your own bank. We never touch your money.
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Start a project end to end
A guided flow: scope and brief with deliverables → quote with live margin and a deposit → build the team (each contractor's role, scope, deliverables and timeline; pick who leads) → launch the workspace.
- Shipped
New homepage — Owena is a command center, not a ledger
Reframed the whole site around running the outsourced project end to end: source the team, run the work, pay everyone, and reconcile it into true profit. Profit is the proof you ran it well, not the pitch.
- Shipped
A founding-partner welcome, from Ola
Every application gets a personal note from me. Qualified agencies get an invite to the founding-partners WhatsApp group, where I share builds and ask for your input first.
- Building
Next: connect-your-bank (optional) + contractor logins
Statement import already covers reconciliation on day one; optional read-only bank-sync (where supported) and contractors logging into their own slice are the fast-follows after founding partners are in.
- Decided
No contractor marketplace. No client portal.
You keep your client relationship and your roster — your contractors are your edge, not a directory for competitors. And client access, if you turn it on, is a masked per-project view, never a window into your delivery.
Use OwenaHQ free while we build it
The early-testers group runs real projects on Owena and gets every update first — with the builders one message away.