Custom Software

When the spreadsheet has become the business, it is time to build the real thing.

The problem

You are probably here because

When spreadsheets stop coping and off-the-shelf software almost fits but not quite, we build the thing that fits. Booking systems, job tracking, inventory, admin portals, customer dashboards -- whatever the daily work needs.

  • One spreadsheet holds the whole operation and only one person really understands it.
  • You pay for software that does 70% of the job, and staff do the other 30% by hand.
  • The same information gets typed into three different places every day.
  • Nobody can answer a simple question without exporting something first.

Included

What you get

Written down before anything is built, so you can price the conversation and hold us to it.

A working system, not a prototype
Deployed on your own domain, with your data, backed up, and usable by your team on day one. Not a demo you have to rebuild later.
Roles and permissions
Owners see everything, staff see their own work, and part-time people see only what they need. Set up once, changeable later without a developer.
Reports people actually open
The three or four numbers your week runs on, on a screen, current. Plus CSV and PDF export for the accountant.
Your existing data, moved in
We import what is in the spreadsheets and the old system so you start with history, not an empty database.
Documentation and handover
Written guides for your team and the full source code. You can take it to another developer at any point.

Process

How a project runs

In this order, with something you can look at early rather than a reveal at the end.

  1. 01

    We watch how the work happens now

    A couple of calls, and where possible a look at the actual spreadsheets and paperwork. The process you have usually contains the requirements.

  2. 02

    Scope, timeline and price, in writing

    Before any code. If the honest answer is that an off-the-shelf tool would do it cheaper, we say so.

  3. 03

    A usable version early

    You get something you can click within the first weeks, then we shape it with you rather than presenting it at the end.

  4. 04

    Launch, then stay

    We move your data across, train the team, and stay on for the first weeks when the real edge cases turn up.

Tools

What we build with

  • Next.js
  • React
  • Node.js
  • PostgreSQL

Ordinary, well-documented tools that other developers already know. Nothing proprietary that only we can maintain.

Questions people ask

How is this different from buying software off the shelf?

Off-the-shelf is cheaper and faster when it fits. It stops being cheaper when your team spends an hour a day working around it. We build custom when the gap between how the tool works and how you work is the expensive part.

What happens to our spreadsheets?

They get imported. Years of history come with you, and the spreadsheet stays as a read-only archive until you are confident in the new system.

Do we own the code?

Yes. You own the source, the data and the accounts it runs on. There is no lock-in and no per-seat licence to us.

What if we need changes after launch?

Most clients keep us on a small monthly arrangement for changes and fixes. Others take the code in-house. Both are fine and we set it up so either is possible.

Next step

Tell us what is not working.

Describe the problem in your own words. We reply with an honest read on whether it is worth building, roughly what it takes, and what we would do first.