Short: five steps, a fixed price and date after one conversation, a month running in parallel, and you only switch once the totals match your spreadsheet to the cent. Source code and data are yours.
The risk in this kind of project is rarely in the building. It is in the switch — the moment your old file goes away and the new thing is not yet trusted. Everything below is arranged around that.
The five steps
1. Check — free, no obligation
You upload the file and answer six questions. We read the structure and give a verdict: keep it as a spreadsheet, move it to a database, or build an application. Roughly one file in four belongs in a spreadsheet, and then that is the advice.
2. One conversation
An hour about the process behind the file: who does what, what has to be right, and where the real bottleneck sits. That conversation is about the data flow, not about screens — that is where the work is. Afterwards you get a fixed price, a fixed delivery date, and in writing what is not included.
3. Build — connections first
Connections to the source systems first, then the data model, then the screens. That order is not accidental: if the data is wrong, no screen helps. You see a working version every week rather than a progress report.
4. Run in parallel and reconcile
For a month your spreadsheet and the application run side by side. Before the switch we put the totals next to each other: revenue, quantities, balances. What the application says must match what your spreadsheet says, to the cent. If it doesn't, we don't go live and we find out where the difference comes from — which, more often than you'd think, is an error in the old file.
5. Handover and maintenance
You receive the application, the source code, the data, and the process on paper: which data comes from where, which rules apply, who may do what. Then the monthly fee starts.
Working with clients abroad
We are based in the Netherlands and most of our clients are Dutch and Belgian. That matters less than you might expect, and it matters in one specific place.
Travels fine
- the application itself, and the hosting
- support and maintenance, in English
- time zones within a few hours of CET
- self-contained files with no integrations
- a fixed price paid up front
Where the limit is
- integrations with software we have never worked with
- local accounting or tax rules we don't know
- working in a language other than Dutch or English
- on-site presence
So the honest rule: if your file stands on its own, distance changes nothing. If it has to pull from systems that are unfamiliar to us, that is a real risk and we will say so before you pay anything — a proposal that ignores it is a proposal that will run late.
What the monthly fee covers
Included
- EU hosting
- daily backups, with a restore check
- monitoring, with an alert when something breaks
- security updates
- keeping up when a source system changes its API
- four small changes a year
- you call the person who built it
Not included
- new functionality or extra screens
- integrations with systems that weren't there before
- training new staff
- data migrations from other sources
- third-party licences (your accounting package, for instance)
That second list is deliberately as prominent as the first. Extra work only starts after you have approved it, at a rate agreed in advance.
The guarantees, and what they're for
You don't switch on trust but on a check. Differences are explained first; only then does the old file go.
In your own environment or in escrow. If we stop, your application does not. That is the first question to ask a small supplier, and it should be answered before you ask it.
If it isn't working as agreed after three months, you get your data back in a usable form and the monthly fee stops.
After the conversation the amount and the delivery date are fixed. Overrun is our problem, not yours.
No US cloud, a data processing agreement, and per-user roles so not everyone sees purchase prices and margins.
Which data comes from where, which rules apply, who may do what. That is what an auditor asks for, and what currently lives only in someone's head.
Why the connections are the real work
Building a screen is quick these days; you barely need an agency for it. What is not quick is making sure the data arrives every night, that an order from the shop is the same order as the invoice in the accounts, and that it keeps working when a supplier changes their API.
That is data engineering, and that is where we come from.
Frequently asked
What if we already built half of it ourselves?
Good starting point, and usually a waste to throw away. We look first at what can be kept. Sometimes the connections are sound and only the screens need redoing; sometimes the other way round.
Can we start small?
That's the intention. The first working version does one thing well. Your spreadsheet keeps running alongside until it is redundant — safer, and it produces much better feedback.
Who actually builds it?
One person, whom you also speak to and later call. No account manager between you and the person writing the code. That is also the limit: we take on a handful of projects a year, not thirty.
Start with the check
Upload your file, answer six questions, and see where you stand. Then decide for yourself whether a conversation follows.
Check your spreadsheet