Bespoke software development in Hull
When a business outgrows spreadsheets, the usual advice is to buy a package and change how you work to suit it. Sometimes that is right. Often it is backwards.
Off-the-shelf software is built for the average business in a sector. If your business does something the average one does not, and that difference is why customers use you, then a package will ask you to give it up.
That is not an accident of how we buy software, it is how it is made. The government’s own review of small business technology put it plainly: products “are often built for enterprise, not SME customers” (SME Digital Adoption Taskforce, 2025). And the cost of that shows: 55% of the small businesses surveyed by Beetroot Consulting have put off decisions or built workarounds (The Listening, 2025).
We build systems around the process instead.
What we build
The work we do most is the operational core of a business: stock, orders, production, despatch, reporting. The parts where a spreadsheet stops coping and a package does not quite fit.
That is the same ground an ERP covers, and plenty of our work starts with a business that has been quoted for one. We build the modules you would actually switch on and leave your ledgers in the accounts package you already have. There is more on that on the stock control and order processing page, including when buying a package is the better answer.
It tends to look like this. Someone in the business keeps everything running with a workbook of their own, full of formulas and colour coding. It works, until they are on holiday, or the file corrupts, or the business doubles. What they have built is a specification. We turn it into software.
Over the years that has meant class scheduling for a gymnastics club, survey records for an asbestos surveyor, a booking system for a small theatre and collection rounds for a waste oil business, alongside the stock and production work we do most. The range is the point: none of those had a package that fitted.
The oldest still running is a beam calculation program from around thirty years ago. The company that commissioned it was bought out, and three years later the new owner came back and asked us to move it onto a laptop with an automatic backup, because they still needed it. That is not what usually happens to software after an acquisition.
Why this sits next to IT support
Plenty of firms will write you software. What is unusual is having the same team host it, back it up, secure it and answer the phone when the printer stops working. The developer who built your system is down the corridor from the engineer who looks after the server it runs on. There is nobody to point at.
What is included
What you get
Discovery
We come and watch how the work is done now. Not a workshop with a whiteboard, the actual job.
A written scope
What the system will do, what it will not do, and what it costs. In language you can check.
Build in stages
You see working software early and often, so it is still going in the right direction when it matters.
Integration
Talking to your accounts package, your website or your suppliers, so information is entered once.
Data migration
Getting what is in the spreadsheets and the old system into the new one, cleaned up on the way.
Training and rollout
We train the people who will use it, on site, using their own data.
Support and changes
The software is supported like the rest of your IT, and it changes as the business does.
Go deeper
More on Software Development
Stock control and order processing
Bespoke stock, order processing and ERP software built in Hull. The parts of an ERP you actually need, without the modules you do not.
Read moreProduction planning
Bespoke production planning and scheduling software for manufacturers in Hull and East Yorkshire. Built around how your factory actually runs.
Read moreCRM systems
CRM built around how you actually sell. For businesses whose quotes, contracts or repeat trade do not fit an off-the-shelf package.
Read moreBusiness process software
The job that runs on a spreadsheet, a shared mailbox and somebody's memory. If no package does it, that is usually because it is yours.
Read more
How we work
What working with us looks like
- 1
Understand the process
We spend time on site. Most of the value is in the details nobody writes down.
- 2
Scope and fixed price
A clear document and a price before we build anything.
- 3
Build and review
Short cycles with something to look at, so feedback arrives while it is cheap to act on.
- 4
Go live and support
We are there on the first day it runs for real, and after.
No obligation
Not sure whether to build or buy?
Tell us what the process is and where it hurts. We will tell you honestly which way we would go, even when the answer is buy a package.
Case study
Written in 1999. Still running today.
We shipped order processing software to a company in the Odlings Group on the 23rd of July 1999, on seven floppy disks. We still have the disks. Some of what is on them is still running in production, twenty seven years later.
Your understanding of the technology available coupled with detailed discussions on the desired outcome has produced a system with capabilities I did not imagine a business our size would be able to achieve. We have gone from a paper system, to a fully traceable production process. This has enabled our office staff to be able to communicate far more confidently with our customers.
Common questions
Is bespoke software more expensive than buying a package?
Sometimes, and sometimes not. A package has a licence fee that never stops, plus the cost of the work it cannot do. The honest comparison is the total over several years, including the time your team spends on workarounds. We will tell you when buying is the better answer.
What if the person who built it leaves?
Nobody here works alone. Every project has more than one developer who knows it, the work is documented as it is built, and it is all in our source control rather than on somebody's machine. You are buying it from a company that has been here since 1989, not from one person. The proof is Odlings: we shipped their order processing software in July 1999 and have maintained and extended it ever since, through twenty seven years of staff coming and going.
Can you work with the systems we already have?
Usually. Most projects we do involve talking to an existing accounts package or website rather than replacing everything.
How long does a project take?
It depends on the scope, and we will not guess before discovery. You get a timescale with the written scope, before you commit.
Do you support it afterwards?
Yes. It sits alongside your IT support, with the same team, which is the main reason clients come to us for both.
Get in touch
Tell us what is not working
Send us a line about your setup and we will come back with what we would actually do about it. No sales pitch, no obligation.
Or call 01482 586 550 or email [email protected].
This form is provided by Growably. See our privacy policy.
Want a straight answer about your IT?
Tell us what is not working. We will tell you what we would do about it, with no sales pitch and no obligation.