Custom business applications
Software shaped around your process
When a business outgrows spreadsheets but no product on the market quite fits, the usual outcome is a compromise: a system people work around rather than with. Forge builds the application that matches the process instead.
How a build is shaped
- Process
- Mapped end to end before anything is built
- Application
- Web, and it works on a phone on site
- Access
- Existing work accounts, or a passcode
- Hosting
- Managed cloud, documented, handed over
The problem
The signs a spreadsheet has stopped coping
Custom software is not always the answer. These are the situations where it usually is.
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The same details typed repeatedly
A client name and site address are re-entered for every document that mentions them. It is slow, and every re-typing is a chance for the two records to drift apart.
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One master file, one person
The business depends on a workbook only one person fully understands, which cannot safely be opened by two people at once and has no real history of who changed what.
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Paying for software you half-use
A licence covers a great deal you will never touch, while the one thing your business actually does differently is the thing the product cannot do.
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The process lives in people's heads
The steps are known but not enforced anywhere, so quality depends on who happened to do the job and whether they remembered every stage.
What Forge provides
A working application, not a prototype
Work starts with the process rather than the software: who captures what, where it goes, and which details get entered more than once.
The application is then designed around that, so the parts your business does differently are the parts it handles properly.
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Business analysis and design
Mapping the current process before anything is built, and agreeing what the system needs to do — including the parts that are easier left alone.
- Current process mapped end to end
- Duplicate data entry identified
- Scope agreed in plain English before development starts
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Development and secure access
Applications built with mainstream, well-supported technology, with an access model that suits who actually needs to get in.
- Web applications that work on a phone on site
- Staff sign-in with existing Microsoft work accounts (Microsoft Entra ID)
- Time-limited email passcodes for approved people outside the business
- Shared records so details are selected rather than re-typed
- Server-side PDF generation to branded templates
- Photo uploads resized and processed automatically
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Hosting, hand-over and aftercare
Deployed as a managed cloud service, documented, and handed over — with light-touch aftercare on what has been built where that is agreed.
- Managed hosting — no server in a cupboard
- Email notifications, retries and failure alerts
- Written documentation at hand-over
- No long-term contract to stay
What that can be
If you can describe the process, I can build the system around it
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Booking systems
Availability, bookings and confirmations held in one place instead of a diary and an inbox.
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Client portals
A signed-in view of the things a customer needs to see, without emailing them a copy each time.
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Quoting and invoicing
Priced documents produced from shared records, numbered consistently and filed on issue.
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Scheduling
Who is doing what, and when, visible to the people who need it rather than on a wall planner.
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Dashboards and reporting
The few numbers the business actually runs on, pulled from the systems that already hold them.
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Internal admin tools
The screens that replace the spreadsheet only one person can safely open.
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Workflow systems
Stages, approvals and hand-offs that enforce themselves rather than relying on memory.
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Integrations
Two systems that never talked to each other, connected so nothing is typed twice.
Not a single product line. The technology follows the problem: sometimes a web application, sometimes a Microsoft 365 workflow, sometimes an integration with what you already run.
A worked example
Three portals for a facilities management business
GB Solutions UK ran job reports, job sheets and quotations as three unrelated pieces of paperwork, with client and site details re-typed into each one. Forge built three separate applications — one per task — sharing a single set of client and site records, a common document store in SharePoint, and one approach to access and hosting.
The written case study covers what was built, how access works for staff and for approved external users, and the technology behind it.
Related services
Technology
Built with
Mainstream tools, chosen because they fit the job and will still be maintainable in a few years.
Next step
Describe the process that is costing you time
A free, no-pressure consultation. You will get a straight answer on whether a custom application is worth it — including when it is not.