docs: initialize project

Multi-tenant SaaS platform for ISP operations management — billing, payments, inventory, technician job orders, and full accounting.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

.planning/PROJECT.md

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+# NetForge
+
+## What This Is
+
+NetForge is a multi-tenant SaaS platform for small-to-medium ISP operations management. It gives ISP owners full visibility into billing, payments, expenses, inventory, technician work, and accounting — replacing the patchwork of spreadsheets and manual tracking that most small ISPs rely on. Each ISP that signs up gets a fully isolated tenant with role-based access for admin, office staff, collectors, technicians, and subscribers.
+
+## Core Value
+
+ISP owners can see exactly where their money is — who owes what, what's been collected, what's been spent, and what the business actually looks like financially — in real time.
+
+## Requirements
+
+### Validated
+
+(None yet — ship to validate)
+
+### Active
+
+- [ ] Multi-tenant architecture with fully isolated data per ISP
+- [ ] Role-based access: Admin, Office Staff, Collector, Technician, Client
+- [ ] Subscriber management (registration, plan assignment, status tracking)
+- [ ] Billing system supporting monthly subscriptions (prepaid and postpaid)
+- [ ] Payment collection tracking (door-to-door cash and online payments)
+- [ ] Collector management with balance visibility per collector
+- [ ] Client portal: view bills/balance, pay online, submit tickets, view plan details
+- [ ] Ticketing system where client issues become job orders for technicians
+- [ ] Job order management with assignment and completion tracking
+- [ ] Technician compensation tracking (fixed rate per job type and monthly salary)
+- [ ] Inventory management for network hardware (routers, ONUs, cables, connectors, splitters)
+- [ ] Asset management tracking deployed equipment per subscriber
+- [ ] Expense tracking and categorization
+- [ ] Full accounting: balance sheet, income statement, journal entries
+- [ ] Dashboard with cash flow visibility and key operational metrics
+
+### Out of Scope
+
+- Mobile native app — web-first, responsive design for mobile access
+- Real-time network monitoring (SNMP/bandwidth) — separate concern, not business operations
+- Automated billing integration with payment gateways — v1 tracks payments, gateway integration later
+- SMS/email blast marketing — not core to operations management
+- Multi-currency support — single currency per tenant for v1
+
+## Context
+
+- Born from real pain running an ISP: no visibility into cash flow, payment status, inventory, or technician workload
+- Target market: small-to-medium ISPs (under 500 to a few thousand subscribers)
+- Collectors go door-to-door collecting cash payments — need to track what they collect and reconcile
+- Technicians are commonly paid per job order (fixed rate per job type) but some ISPs use monthly salary
+- Customer issues come in via calls/texts, staff manually creates tickets that become job orders
+- Network hardware (routers, ONUs, cables, splitters, connectors) is the primary inventory to track
+- SaaS model: the owner plans to use it for their own ISP and publish it for other ISPs to subscribe
+
+## Constraints
+
+- **Architecture**: Multi-tenant with strict data isolation between ISPs
+- **Accounting**: Must follow double-entry bookkeeping principles for journal entries, balance sheets, income statements
+- **Access**: Five distinct roles with different permissions (Admin, Office Staff, Collector, Technician, Client)
+- **Billing**: Must support both prepaid (pay before service) and postpaid (pay after service period) models
+
+## Key Decisions
+
+| Decision | Rationale | Outcome |
+|----------|-----------|---------|
+| Multi-tenant SaaS (not single-tenant) | Plan to publish for other ISPs, not just personal use | — Pending |
+| Full double-entry accounting | Owner needs proper books, not just cash tracking | — Pending |
+| Web-first (no native mobile) | Faster to ship, responsive design covers mobile needs | — Pending |
+| Tech stack TBD | Will be determined during research phase | — Pending |
+
+---
+*Last updated: 2026-03-04 after initialization*