Custom software
Custom software development for small businesses
For the work that has outgrown a spreadsheet but doesn't justify an enterprise system. We build small, write down how it works, and hand over the code.
What we build
Three kinds of job
Not platforms, and not apps with investor decks. Working software that does one job your business has.
- 01
Booking and scheduling systems
The replacement for the paper diary, the shared inbox and the four-email exchange to agree a time. Customers book, the system handles the rules, and your staff stop being a switchboard.
- 02
Customer portals
A place your customers log in to see their own information: documents, job status, invoices. Every call that opens with just checking where we are up to is a feature request for one of these.
- 03
Internal tools
Somewhere in your business there is a spreadsheet that everything secretly depends on: quoting, job tracking, stock. It works until the day someone sorts a column wrong. We turn it into proper software, with logins, history and validation.
Fit
When it makes sense, and when it doesn't
Most business problems are already solved by software you can rent by the month, and if yours is one of them we will say so and send you the link. Recommending things we don't build is a service we sell.
It earns its keep in three situations: the off-the-shelf options force you to work their way; you are paying monthly for ten features and using two; or the spreadsheet holding things together has become load-bearing and everyone is quietly afraid of it.
Version one does one job well. No eighteen-month roadmap, no features built on the off chance: the smallest version that helps, in your hands quickly, extended later if it earns it. It is far cheaper to grow working software than to rescue ambitious software.
Process
How it works
Ten to sixteen weeks for most projects, in four stages.
- 01
The first conversation
You describe the job, usually by describing the spreadsheet. We tell you whether custom software is the right answer. Sometimes it isn't, and the call is where that costs you nothing.
- 02
The spec
We write down what we are going to build, in plain English, with a fixed quote attached. The surprises happen here, on paper, where they are cheap.
- 03
The build
Built in stages you can try, rather than a reveal at the end. You use the half-built version and change our minds about things while changing them is easy.
- 04
Test, train, hand over
We test it against your real work, train your team, and hand over the code and the documentation. Then it is yours.
Afterwards
After launch
The software is yours: code, documentation and intellectual property. From there you can run it on your own infrastructure, or let us run it on managed hosting, monitored, backed up and patched. Most clients pick the hosting. None of them have to.
A UK medical association was losing a week every month to expenses spreadsheets. We built an internal tool that runs the whole flow, from submission to approval. The finance team has that week back, every month.
Things we get asked
Frequently asked questions
Tell us what you're weighing up
Describe the spreadsheet, or the process that keeps going wrong, and we will tell you whether custom software is the right answer. Sometimes it isn't, and the call is where that costs you nothing.