The free business audit
About an hour, at no cost, with no obligation. This is where most of the value gets decided.
We talk to you, and then to your team
Owners describe the business as it is supposed to work. The storekeeper, the billing clerk and the supervisor describe it as it actually works. The gap between those two conversations is usually where the problem lives.
We map how work and information move
Who records what, when, and where it goes next. We look specifically for delays between an event happening and it being recorded, and for places the same information is entered twice.
We look at your existing systems
Tally, Excel sheets, whatever software you already bought. Often something you own already does more than you are using it for.
We write it down and give it to you
A short document: what we found, what it is likely costing, what to fix first, and roughly what each would take. It is yours regardless of whether you engage us.
Prioritising — and deciding what not to build
This stage saves clients the most money, because it is where scope gets cut.
Rank by return, not by ambition
Each problem gets a rough cost of leaving it alone and a rough cost of fixing it. The order follows that, which is often not the order the owner expected.
Separate what needs software from what needs a decision
A surprising share of operational problems are policy problems — nobody owns a step, or two people have different rules. Those get fixed by deciding, not by building.
Agree a phase plan you can stop at any point
Each phase delivers something that works on its own. You fund phase two from the return on phase one, and you can end the engagement after any phase with a working system.
Fixed scope and price per phase
You approve one phase at a time, knowing exactly what it includes and what it costs. Additions get scoped separately rather than absorbed silently.
Building — in two-week pieces
Screens before code
You click through the actual interface before development starts. Changing a screen at this point takes an hour; changing it later takes a week.
A working build every two weeks
Real software on real data. Your team uses it, finds what is wrong, and we correct it in the next cycle while the cost of change is still low.
Your data migrated early, not at the end
We bring your actual masters and history across early, because testing on real data is the only testing that finds real problems. Data cleaning is usually the longest part and we plan for it explicitly.
Parallel running before switchover
For anything touching core operations, the old method runs alongside the new until the numbers agree. Nobody is forced to switch on a date.
Adoption, training and staying available
The project is not finished at go-live. It is finished when people are still using it six months later.
Training on your data, by department
Each team trained on their own screens with their own records, in the language they work in. Not a generic walkthrough.
Documentation and recordings you keep
Written guides and video walkthroughs so a new joiner can be brought up to speed without calling us.
Support when the real questions appear
Week three is when genuine problems surface, once the novelty has gone and people are using it under pressure. We are available through that period with defined response times.
A review after a few months
We come back and check what is actually being used, what has been worked around, and what should change. Workarounds are information, not failure.
Process questions
How much of our team's time will this take?
The audit needs about an hour from you and thirty minutes each from three or four staff. During the build, expect a few hours a week from one person who can answer process questions and test what we deliver.
The stage that needs most time from your side is data cleaning, and we tell you that upfront so it can be planned rather than becoming a bottleneck.
What if we do not like what you build?
The two-week cycle exists precisely so this does not become a surprise at the end. You see and use everything as it is built, and course corrections happen while they are cheap.
If a phase genuinely does not deliver what was agreed, we fix it. That is what fixed scope means.
Can we pause between phases?
Yes, and clients do. Each phase leaves you with a working system, so pausing for a quarter to absorb the change or free up budget is a perfectly reasonable decision.
What happens if our business changes mid-project?
It often does. Small adjustments are handled within the cycle. Structural changes get re-scoped honestly, and sometimes the right answer is to stop the current phase and re-plan rather than continue building something that no longer fits.
The first stage is free and takes an hour
You will get a written view of what is holding the business back, whether or not you build anything with us.