Custom web applications
You know you need one of these when somebody on your team has built a spreadsheet to work around the software you already pay for.
We start with that spreadsheet, because the workaround tells you exactly what the tool should have done. Then we build the thing that fits, host it, and keep it running.
When people call us about this
- The off the shelf system does about seventy percent of the job and you patch the rest by hand.
- Two systems hold the same data and somebody retypes it between them.
- A job that should take two minutes takes twenty because of where the information lives.
- Your process only works because one person remembers how.
- You have been quoted for enterprise software that costs more than the problem.
What we build
Quoting and estimating tools
Built around how you actually price, including the exceptions and the judgement calls, rather than a generic calculator that gets the easy quotes right and the profitable ones wrong.
Job tracking and approvals
Where something is, who has it, what it is waiting on. Usually replacing a shared spreadsheet that three people edit at once.
Reporting that answers your question
Not a dashboard of everything measurable. The two or three numbers you actually make decisions on, produced on schedule without anybody assembling them.
Portals for clients and staff
A place to submit, check and retrieve things, so it stops happening by email attachment.
Joining systems that will not talk
Two pieces of software that were never designed to meet, made to exchange what they need to without a person in the middle.
What that looks like
Twenty minutes to two
A manufacturer was quoting by hand, roughly twenty minutes a quote, with the accuracy varying by whoever was doing it that day. The tool we built takes two minutes and gives the same answer every time. It is still running.
How it works
Start with the workaround
We look at the spreadsheet, the manual step, the thing everyone apologises for. That is the specification, and it is more honest than anything written in a requirements document.
Agree it on paper first
What it will do, what it will not do, and what happens to the job it replaces. Before anything is built, so nobody discovers the disagreement at the end.
Build, host, maintain
Built, put live, and kept running. Software with nobody responsible for it is a problem with a delay on it.
How long, and what it costs
A focused first version is usually four to eight weeks. We would rather ship something narrow that works and extend it than spend six months building everything you might one day want.
Price depends on scope, and we would rather look first than quote a range that turns out to be wrong for you. The first conversation is fifteen minutes and costs nothing.
Common questions
Is this cheaper than buying software?
Sometimes, and sometimes not. A licence for fifty users forever adds up, but so does a custom build. What decides it is usually how unusual your process is. If your way of working is genuinely standard, buy the standard thing, and we will say so.
What happens if you disappear?
The code is yours and it is documented. It is built with mainstream tools rather than anything exotic, so another developer can pick it up. That is a fair question to ask anybody and you should ask it.
Can it talk to our accounting or CRM system?
Usually yes, if the other system has an API or can export on a schedule. Where it cannot, there are still options, and we will tell you honestly which ones are robust and which ones are held together with tape.
Who hosts it?
We do, unless you would rather it sat in your own environment. Either works. Hosted with us means one number to call when something is wrong.
Related
- Process Automation — The little things that only take a minute, until you add up the year. We take them off your desk and keep them off it.
- Google Apps Scripts — The job that eats a morning every week, done in the background instead. Sheets, Docs, Gmail, Drive and Calendar, wired together properly.
Fifteen minutes, no obligation. We will tell you straight whether this is the right fix for what you have described.
Time to talk yet?