Bespoke software or off the shelf: how to decide

The question is not which is better

It is which part of the business you are talking about. Every firm has two kinds of work. There is the work that is the same everywhere: accounts, payroll, email, the office calendar. And there is the work that is the firm itself: how a job comes in, who does what to it, what gets checked, what goes to the customer. The first kind is what packages are for. The second is where bespoke earns its keep.

Most of the systems we build sit beside a package rather than replacing one. The accounts software keeps raising invoices. The bespoke system runs the work.

Where a package fits

A package is the sensible choice when most of these are true:

• The job it does is the same at every firm, like the ledger or payroll.
• You are happy to work the package's way, including its words for things.
• It covers the whole of that job, with nothing left over on a spreadsheet.
• A trial with your real jobs, not the demo data, needed no workarounds.

Nobody should have accounts software made to measure. It is a solved problem, your accountant already knows the standard products, and a bespoke version would cost more and gain nothing.

Where bespoke fits

Bespoke is the right answer for the part of the business that makes you different from the firm down the road. The signs are easy to spot:

• The way work moves through your firm is your own, and it works. You want software that follows it rather than software you bend to.
• A spreadsheet or a whiteboard already runs the operational core, and the business has grown around it.
• Two or three tools each hold part of the picture, and somebody types the same figure into more than one of them.
• You need your team on it in the field, on a phone, with photos and signatures coming straight back to the office.
• You want to own the direction. When the business changes, you want the system to change that week, not when a supplier's roadmap gets to it.

A plant hire firm is a good example. Hire software handles the contract and the invoice well, because that part is the same everywhere. Inspection dates, which machine was last checked and by whom, where the kit is and what is due back, are shaped differently at every yard. That is the part worth building, and it is usually the part that is on a spreadsheet today.

Keep the package, build the gap

This is why the choice is rarely all or nothing. A bespoke system handles the work itself, the jobs, the containers, the inspections, and where the package has an export or an interface, the figures pass across so nobody types them twice. The build stays focused, because you only build what nobody sells. There is more on how that joining works on our page about systems that join up what you already run.

What each one asks of you

A package asks you to work its way, to pay for the modules it bundles whether you open them or not, and to wait for its roadmap when you need something changed. In return it is quick to start and somebody else maintains it.

A bespoke system asks for some of your time at the start, because somebody has to explain how work actually moves through the place, and it asks for a supplier you can rely on for years, since the people who built it are the people who keep it running. In return you get screens that use your words, steps in the order your office already does them, and a system that changes when the business does. With us the price is fixed in writing before anything is built, and hosting and support are part of the service rather than something to arrange separately.

Questions to ask either way

Whichever way you lean, these are worth asking before you sign:

• Can we get all of our data out, and in what format?
• Who do we ring, and are they the people who can actually fix it?
• What happens when we need something changed, and how quickly?
• Where is it hosted, and how is it backed up?
• What is in writing before we commit: scope, price and dates?

A good package supplier and a good bespoke supplier should both answer those without hesitating. Our guide to what to expect from hosting and support goes into the last few in more detail.

What this means for you

Keep the packages that do the standard jobs well. For the work that is your own, the jobs, the kit, the checks and the paperwork that run the business day to day, a system built around how you already do it is usually the better fit, and it usually starts from the spreadsheet that runs it now.

You can see the kinds of system we build on the services page, or tell us what you use now and we will tell you straight which parts are worth building and which are better left where they are.