Build or buy? When a small business should commission custom software.

Most small businesses should buy software. Bookkeeping, email, payroll and point of sale are solved problems, and solved well. But some work is specific to how you operate, and that is where generic tools quietly cost you every week.

Buy when

• The problem is the same for every business, like accounting or email.
• A good product exists and your team would actually use it.
• You can adapt your process to the tool without losing what makes you good.

Build when

• The work is how you win. Your method, your reporting or your service is the product.
• You are paying for three tools and a spreadsheet to do one job.
• Clients see the output, and the output does not look as good as the work behind it.
• Someone spends hours every week copying data between systems.

The middle path

You rarely need to replace everything. The best custom builds are small: a portal on top of the spreadsheet you already keep, a weekly summary from the system you already pay for, an intake form that sends the right message to the right person. Keep the tools that work and build the missing link between them.

How to tell if a build will pay for itself

• Count the hours the problem costs each month, and what those hours are worth.
• Count the clients or sales it affects, and what one more renewal is worth.
• Compare that against the build and the running cost over two years.

If the numbers are close, buy. If the build pays back inside a year, it is usually worth doing, and worth doing properly.

Talk it through

Send us the problem, not the solution. We will tell you plainly whether to buy, build or leave it alone, and if a product already exists that does the job, we will point you to it.