Software development: custom work that gets maintained
Most business software does not need building; it already exists. What does need building is the part in between: the link between till and stock, the application for the process no package fits, the report still made by hand every week. We build that, and more importantly: we maintain it afterwards.
Where the service starts and stops
Four parts, and the fourth is a boundary rather than a part.
- Custom applicationsBusiness applications for the process that no standard package fits: built on what already runs, web-based where possible, and documented so a successor can read it.
- IntegrationsSystems that need each other’s data (till, WMS, ERP, Microsoft 365) talk through an integration instead of through retyping. Clean data on both sides is half the work.
- Maintenance and further developmentSoftware nobody maintains is, three years on, the system nobody dares touch. What we build, we also manage: updates, monitoring and an agreed path for changes.
- The code is yours, the package is the vendor’sWhat we build for you is yours, with source code and documentation, leaving us is always possible. And the package software we integrate with stays its vendor’s: we do not build replacement tills or ERPs and we do not sell a package of our own.
How a build runs with us
Three steps, and the first can also be the last.
The question first
Which work costs time now, and is building actually the answer? Sometimes the outcome is a setting in a package you already have; we say so, because software that is not built does not need maintaining either.
Deliver small
We build in steps that each deliver something working, so after every step you can see whether it is right, and steer before a wrong assumption carries three months of work.
Hand over or manage
At delivery you choose: your team takes it over, with source code and documentation, or it stays with us in management alongside the rest of the environment.
What goes with this
Building touches the systems, the data and the people working with them.
Questions we get about this
The ones that come up most, answered briefly.
Do you also build a replacement for our till or ERP?
No. Package software stays its vendor’s; we build the custom work and the integrations around it, and we do not sell a package of our own. That way your build partner never competes with the systems it connects for you.
Who owns the code you write?
You do, with source code and documentation included. Leaving us is always possible: what was built goes with you, just as passwords and documentation go with you under our management. That is on paper up front, not in the small print.
What if building is not the best solution?
Then we say so, along with what does fit, often a setting or module in a package already running. Software that is not built does not need maintaining either, and that advice is cheaper than the finest custom work.
What does custom software cost?
We propose a project in steps, with a price agreed up front per step and a working result at the end of each. So after every step you see what it delivered and decide on the next yourself; there is never a running project whose meter nobody knows.
Software that keeps working
Tell us which work costs time now or which systems do not understand each other. You get a proposal in steps, with what each step delivers, and an honest no if building is not the answer.
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