One spine, eleven products: what actually happens when you add a second one

"One connected platform" is the least falsifiable claim in software. Almost everyone makes it, and it usually means the products share a login and a colour scheme. So here is the version you can check, and the two places where it stops being true.

What sharing a spine actually means

• —One project. A project created in Ofivio Architecture is the same object in Ofivio Build — not a copy, not a sync, the same row.
• —One roster. The person a site report names is the person payroll pays and the person a project is costed against.
• —One ledger. Whichever product produced the event — a certificate, a goods receipt, a rent receipt, a payroll run — the entry lands in Ofivio Books if you have it.
• —One client. A client who approves a drawing is the client an invoice is raised against.

What happens when you add a second product

Nothing migrates, because nothing moves. A product is added to the workspace you already have; the projects, people and clients in it stay exactly where they are and the new product simply starts being able to see the parts that concern it. That is the difference between a platform and a suite of separately-bought applications with an import wizard.

It also means you should not buy in advance. Most firms run on one product for a long time and add the second when a specific pain appears — usually the books, usually when the principal gets tired of being the bookkeeper.

Where the claim stops

• —**A project store and a retail stock ledger are not one thing.** They look alike and behave oppositely: one issues material to work, the other sells it. Build and POS keep separate stock for that reason, and pretending otherwise would make both worse.
• —**The Ofiverse platforms are a different spine.** The portfolio, blog, store and consultant marketplace included with every subscription share your identity, not your project data — deliberately, because a public profile reading from a private ledger is a data-leak waiting to be discovered.

The two free dashboards

Every product includes the roster and the invoice/expense side free, because no company runs without people and money. Charging twice for the basics is how platforms make enemies, and it also breaks the spine: if the roster were paid, half the products would need their own, and there would be four rosters within a year.