The spreadsheet is the system
It holds the real prices, the real credit terms and the only copy of last quarter. It also sits on one laptop, and nobody has tested its backup.
Services
Custom business software
The file that decides your margin is a spreadsheet, and the person who understands its formulas is on leave. That is usually the moment a business calls us: a packaged product covers eight of the ten steps, and the two it misses are the ones the money passes through. Custom software is the decision to describe your own workflow precisely, then pay once to have it built instead of paying every month in workarounds.
Who it is for
- Businesses whose pricing, approval or billing rules do not fit an off-the-shelf product.
- Companies keeping a spreadsheet that three people depend on and nobody owns.
- Teams that bought software already and still do half the work outside it.
Problems it solves
The tool ends where the work continues
The invoicing product stops at the invoice; the approval, the delivery note and the exception live in email. Someone retypes the same order three times, and the third version is the one that gets paid.
Nobody can change it
The person who built the file left, and the formula in column N is now a rule nobody can explain. Change one cell and the totals move in ways no one predicted.
Use cases
Order to invoice for an unusual sales motion
Deposits, staged deliveries or monthly billing from meter readings — with the document sequence your customer and your accountant both expect.
Approvals that match the org chart
A purchase above a threshold routes to the owner, a discount below cost routes to the manager, and each decision is recorded with a name and a time.
Job costing for made-to-order work
Each job collects its materials, hours and subcontractor invoices, so the quote can be compared to the real cost instead of guessed at the end of the year.
Retiring the spreadsheet gradually
The file keeps importing and exporting until the new system has run a full cycle beside it. Then it is archived, with its history still readable.
What is in scope
Fixed scope. Fixed price.
Agreed in writing before anything is built. You approve before we start.
- A written description of the workflow as it runs today, including the exceptions
- The data model, and a decision on what the spreadsheet keeps and what it stops doing
- The build, in slices that can be used before the next one starts
- Import of existing records with a control total you approve
- Roles and access permissions for each step in the workflow
- Handover: source code, documentation and the accounts in your name
How it is delivered
- 01
Sit with the person who does it
The author of the spreadsheet and the person who repairs it on Fridays. We read the file cell by cell, including the columns with no header.
- 02
Write the rules down
Every exception becomes a sentence someone signed off on. Ambiguity found now is cheap; ambiguity found in month three is a rewrite.
- 03
Build the money path first
The step where an order becomes an invoice, or a quote becomes a commitment, is built and used before anything around it.
- 04
Retire the file on evidence
The spreadsheet runs beside the system for a full cycle. It is archived, not deleted, and nobody has to remember it afterwards.
FAQ
Questions about this service.
What owners usually ask before requesting a quote for it.
We already bought a system. Is this a rewrite?
Usually not. If the product works and the gap is two steps, we build the two steps and connect them. A rewrite is proposed when the data model cannot carry the workflow at all, and we tell you which case you are in before quoting anything.
When is custom software the wrong answer?
When the workflow is standard. A shop, a clinic's appointments or a small delivery office is served better by a product that already exists and has been tested by thousands of others. It is also wrong when nobody in the business can spare the hours to describe the rules — the build fails then, whoever writes it.
What happens to the spreadsheet's history?
Open balances and the records still referenced by the business are imported. Old rows that exist only for memory are exported to a readable file and archived with the system. Nothing is overwritten in place.
Who owns the code, and who maintains it?
You do. The repository, the domain and the hosting accounts are in your name at handover, with documentation your own developer can follow. Maintenance is a separate agreement; there is no licence that stops working if you leave.
Start a project
Want this scoped for your business?
Send the brief. It comes back as a written scope and a fixed quote before anything is built.