Signs a spreadsheet is no longer enough
- several versions of the same file are going round by email and nobody knows which one is current,
- data is retyped by hand between the spreadsheet, the accounting system, the online shop and email,
- mistakes cost money – a wrong price in a quote, a missed order, a double booking,
- the knowledge sits in one person's head – the one who "knows how this file works",
- you can't set permissions – everyone sees and can change everything,
- field staff have no convenient access from their phones,
- the month-end report takes someone a whole day.
If you recognise three or more of these points, it's worth calculating how many hours a month the current way of working costs.
Off-the-shelf SaaS or a custom app?
| Off-the-shelf software (SaaS) | Custom web app | |
|---|---|---|
| Start | immediately | after design and implementation |
| Upfront cost | low | higher |
| Cost over time | a subscription that grows with the number of users | maintenance and development |
| Fit with your process | you adapt to the tool | the tool adapts to you |
| Integrations | the ones the vendor planned for | any, via API |
| Ownership of data and code | with the vendor | with you |
Choose off-the-shelf SaaS when your process is standard – e.g. typical accounting, a simple CRM, a booking calendar – and there's a tool that handles it well.
Choose a custom app when the process is what sets you apart from the competition, when you're holding several tools together "with sticky tape", or when subscriptions for many users start costing more than your own system would.
The best answer is often a combination: off-the-shelf tools for the standard things and a small custom system that ties them into one process.
What a custom system usually includes
- a dashboard with roles and permissions – who sees and can change what,
- a single source of data – customers, orders, products, dates in one database,
- automation – notifications, reminders, generating documents and reports,
- integrations – accounting, online shop, payments, couriers, email,
- access from a phone – as a responsive app or a PWA,
- change history – who changed what and when.
Where AI helps
A large part of the work that takes the most time today is retyping data from documents: invoices, orders, emails, forms. This is where language models do well – they read the documents, extract the data into the system and flag cases for a person to check. More in the AI and automation section and in the article about AI chatbots for business.
How to start without tripping up
- Describe the current process – step by step, including who does what and in which tool.
- Find the most expensive part – where the most time is lost or the most mistakes happen.
- Build that part first – as the system's first module, with data imported from the spreadsheets.
- Roll out gradually – one team, one process, then the next ones.
In practice this approach is an MVP: you see results quickly, and further modules are built on the experience from the first one.
We build dashboards, internal systems and SaaS products – see what that looks like on the web apps page.
Related services: web apps, ai & automation.