CStoreSync

The context

Ruthton Express is a fuel stop, deli kitchen and jerky counter in rural Minnesota, open from six in the morning until nine at night with the pumps running around the clock. Work on that shape is not one job, it is a run of shifts, and the recurring parts of it live in whoever happens to be on: the opening and closing routines, the checks, the restocking. None of it carries between crews except by memory and whatever gets said at handover. Which leaves the owner as the tracking system, assigning by hand, chasing what got done, and hearing about anything missed only after it has been missed.

What the work involved

• Built the system end to end on Next.js and Node.js over PostgreSQL, then deployed and configured it on AWS EC2.
• Modelled it around two roles, admin and employee, with access control drawn so that an owner or manager works across the whole operation while staff see the work that is theirs.
• Built task assignment as the central workflow: a task is created, assigned to a person, and carries a state the assignee moves it through, so completion is recorded as it happens rather than reported afterwards.
• Implemented full CRUD across staff and tasks alike, so the owner runs the system day to day without a developer in the loop.
• Replaced the manual tracking the owner had been keeping by hand, which is where the saving came from: assignment and follow up stopped living in one person's head.

Outcome

Assignment and follow up moved off the owner's memory and into something both roles can see. Staff open the app to find what is theirs, and the owner can tell what a shift actually did without asking the person who worked it.