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Getting started

What Hemma is (and what it isn't)

Most "construction project management" tools are built for general contractors. Gantt charts, resource allocation, change-order workflows. Hemma is not that. Hemma is built for the person who is living through a build — the homeowner who hired the contractors, who is paying the invoices, who is having the 2am budget anxiety. Different job, different tool.

This article explains, in plain language, what Hemma actually does and what it doesn't.

01What Hemma does

Hemma is the experienced administrator working quietly in the background of your build. Three concrete things, all happening without you having to ask:

  • Reads your documents. Forward an invoice, a quote, a permit, a plan, a photo. Hemma figures out what kind of document it is, pulls out the contractor name, the amounts, the dates, and the VAT — all in about thirty seconds. The original is always there to inspect.
  • Tracks your money. Every invoice and quote that comes in gets linked to a budget line. The numbers update in real time. You always know what's estimated, what's quoted, what's invoiced, and what's been paid. No more spreadsheet hell.
  • Watches your contractors. When you add a contractor, Hemma checks them against the official Belgian register (KBO/BCE), pulls the company name, address, VAT, and surfaces public financial signals. You don't have to do that lookup yourself.

When something needs your attention — a budget about to go over, an invoice past due, an AI extraction that wasn't sure of itself — Hemma surfaces it on your home screen. The rest of the time it stays out of your way.

02What Hemma asks of you

Decisions. That's it. The product model is:

Hemma works in the background → surfaces signals where you already are → you act, or ignore if nothing is needed.

You forward documents. You answer the occasional "is this contractor right?" or "did you mean €1,200 or €12,000?". You decide which quote to accept. Hemma handles the paperwork around those decisions.

It is not a tool you use every day. If you find yourself opening Hemma daily to "check on it", that's a sign something isn't working — Hemma is supposed to come to you, not the other way around.

03What Hemma doesn't do

Just as important: a list of things Hemma deliberately stays out of.

  • It doesn't pay your invoices for you. Hemma can read the IBAN and generate a payment QR code, but you tap "pay" in your bank app. We never touch your money.
  • It doesn't sign contracts on your behalf. You read the quote, you decide, you reply. Hemma can draft the email if you want; you send it.
  • It doesn't talk to your contractors as if it were you. No automated chatbot pretending to be a human. When Hemma communicates outward, it's clearly Hemma.
  • It doesn't override your decisions. Every AI extraction, every linked invoice, every signal can be corrected with a tap. The most severe alert AI can ever raise is Urgent — never Critical. Critical signals come from real, hard failures only.
  • It doesn't share your data. Your documents stay in your project. The only person who sees them is you, your team members, and architects you've explicitly invited to a single shared plan.

04The glass box

Hemma is automated, but never opaque. Every decision Hemma made — every document it processed, every invoice it linked, every contractor it flagged — is visible and inspectable. The web app is the glass box: you go there when you want to look under the hood, understand the full picture, or fix something Hemma got wrong.

The day-to-day surfaces are your inbox, your calendar, and your phone notifications. That's where Hemma shows up. The hub is for depth, not daily use.

05Who Hemma is for

People building or renovating their own home in Belgium, who are coordinating their own project (even when most of the trades are subcontracted), who care about the budget, and who would rather spend their evenings choosing tiles than chasing invoices.

If that's you, set up your project in four steps and Hemma takes it from there.