Custom Software

When nothing off-the-shelf quite fits, I build something that does. Designed around how your team actually thinks and works.

You explain what you need to the person who writes the code, so nothing gets lost on its way through a project manager or a ticket system. When something is unclear, I ask you directly. And when your team runs into something that gets in the way, it comes straight to me, not into a queue.

Your team stops bending themselves around software that wasn't built for them

Building your own pays off once a ready-made product has been bent so far that it barely fits, or your team works around it instead of with it. If standard software genuinely fits, I will tell you.

In year one it costs more than a licence, over five years often less. Licences are paid per person and month, indefinitely. Your own software is paid for once, and after that only for the changes you want.

Replaces the spreadsheets, the workarounds, the manual steps

Spreadsheets are usually where it starts. They are good at calculating and poor as a shared record: two versions, no history, and nobody sure which one counts. I look at yours and rebuild what they are really being asked to do.

Before that, I sit with you and watch how the work happens today. Then I describe the process back as I understood it, and you correct me. I only start building once that is right.

Built on solid foundations. Scales as you grow.

You get the source code and the documentation from the start, not at handover. I use widely adopted open-source technology with a large pool of developers behind it, so someone else could take over without starting from zero.

Growth is a matter of structure. I keep the data separate from the interface and the processes replaceable. If you double in size or add a new line of business, the software gets extended, not rebuilt.