You work with three packages and a spreadsheet that holds everything together. The standard package does almost what you need, and for the rest someone has thought up a workaround. One day that workaround costs more time than the package saves. That is the moment businesses start looking for custom software. On this page you read when custom work pays off, what it involves and what to check.
What is custom software?
Custom software is software that is built for your business and your process, instead of a package that thousands of businesses use in the same way. It can be a planning tool that calculates the way you calculate, a customer portal where your customers arrange their own affairs, or an internal screen that brings data from several systems together.
It is not the same as having a package configured. With configuring you choose from what the package can do. With custom work you decide what the software has to be able to do.
Standard package or custom work: four questions
Custom work is not always the answer. Ask yourself these questions first:
- 1Is there a package that does most of the work well? Then that is almost always the better start.
- 2Is the difference between you and your competitor in this process? Not for your accounting, perhaps for the way you plan or quote.
- 3How many workarounds do you have now? One spreadsheet next to the package is manageable. Three spreadsheets and one colleague who is the only one who knows how it works is a risk.
- 4Can it be done with an integration? Often the problem is not that a package cannot do something, but that two packages do not talk to each other. Then an API integration is enough.
If after these four questions there is work left that no package does well and that makes the difference for you, custom work is worth considering.
What having custom software built involves
1. Writing down the process before anything is built
Software records how you work. If that is not on paper, the builder records what they think you mean. So first write down how the work runs now, including the exceptions, and what has to change.
2. Starting small
The first version does not have to do everything. Choose the part that delivers most and have that built first. That way you already use the software while the rest is still being thought out, and you notice early what works differently in practice than on paper.
3. Testing with your own cases
Let the people who do the work try the software with real cases, including the difficult ones. What they run into, no builder finds by themselves.
4. Connecting to what is already there
Custom software rarely stands alone. It usually has to get data from or send data to your accounting, your payment provider or your website. Ask beforehand which integrations are part of it.
5. Agreeing who maintains it
Software is not finished after delivery. Wishes are added, and the systems around it change. Agree beforehand who maintains it and what that takes.
Web app or phone app?
Much custom work is a web app: software you use in the browser, on any device, without installing anything. For office work and for customer portals that is usually the simplest choice. A phone app makes sense when people use it on the road or when it needs something from the phone, such as the camera or the location.
Who owns the code?
Ask this before you sign. Is the software yours after delivery, or do you rent it? Do you get the source code, and can another party continue with it if you change builder? Does the software run with you or with the builder? There is no single right answer, but you want to know before you start.
What to check in a builder
- Do they ask about your process first, or do they show screens straight away?
- Do they suggest a package or an integration when that is enough?
- Do they start with a small first version?
- Can you speak to the people who build it?
- Is it clear who owns the code and who maintains it?
A management environment built to order: you manage it yourself
Custom work does not have to mean that you need the builder for every change. Good custom software comes with a management environment: a shielded part where you keep up to date what your customers get to see. That is something else than a CMS for the texts of your website. It is about your offer, your planning, your prices and your payments.
For Balayar we built such a management environment in their booking and payment system. In it they can manage course days and events themselves, with date, time, price, capacity and location, and also the locations, the products on the payment pages, discount codes, payment requests and invoices. There are screens for the participants and for the figures on registrations and payments.
What we build
Automatevia builds custom software for the web. Examples of what we built:
- a booking and payment system with course registration, an admin screen and its own API for the client;
- a customer portal for a swimming school, where parents register their child, cancel the registration and report their child sick;
- integrations with the payment provider Mollie.
In addition, we build AI teams that take over work that does not fit fixed rules. More about that is on the page about AI automation services for small businesses.
Frequently asked questions about having custom software built
When is custom software better than a standard package?
When no package does the work well that makes the difference for your business, and when the workarounds around your current packages cost more time than they save. If a package does most of it well, start there.
What does having custom software built cost?
That depends on how much the first version has to do, on the number of integrations and on who maintains it afterwards. A small first version for one process is the least work. Besides the build, always ask what maintenance costs.
How long does it take?
That depends on the size of the first version and on how well the process is already described. A process that is on paper and starts small goes fastest.
Who owns the software after delivery?
That differs per builder and per agreement. Ask beforehand whether the software and the source code are yours, where the software runs and whether another party can continue with it.
Can custom software connect to my accounting or payment provider?
Usually it can, if those systems have an API. What is possible depends on what the system releases; you check that before anything is built.
Start with the free scan
Want to know which workaround can go at your business? Send us your weekly tasks and we tell you what a system can take over. To the free scan.
