Hello!
At first, I'd say I greatly appreciate you describing in very detail the whole process, as it offers me a very good big picture of it. I think, though, there are some more details to be discussed about the project, so if you could come online and have a short chat with me, that'd be really nice. I must say I am not able to build an iphone app, but I can create a web interface to the app, which they will open in their mobile browser, login and do whatever they need to do, and maybe you can tell me more about who's gonna use the mobile interface and what are the things they should be able to do there. More, using this kind of interface would also allow them to connect by not only iphone, but also with ANY mobile device (phone, tablet), and I think this is better to not bind them to using an iphone. Also, building an iphone app would probably also cost a lot more, btw.
Regards,
Dragos