In short: custom business software is written around the way your company works, instead of bending the company to fit a ready-made program. It pays off when your process doesn’t fit the packages on the market, when your data lives in three programs and a spreadsheet, or when per-user fees get heavy. You don’t need to replace everything at once: you start with a first version that covers the essentials, connected to the systems you already use.
Ortica builds custom web apps and business software in Padua, Italy, with React, Next.js and Node. Below is how we think before proposing bespoke software, including the cases where it isn’t worth it.
Excel, off-the-shelf software or custom?
They’re three right answers to three different situations. The point isn’t which is best, but which one holds up to the way you work.
|
|
Excel or shared spreadsheets |
Off-the-shelf software |
Custom software |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Getting started |
straight away, almost free |
quickly, with a subscription |
needs a project, done in phases |
|
Fits your process |
yes, as long as it stays simple |
as far as its settings go |
yes, it’s written around it |
|
Several people at once |
data gets overwritten |
yes, with roles and permissions |
yes, with the roles you need |
|
Links to other systems |
by hand, copy and paste |
the ones the vendor provides |
the ones you need, via APIs or files |
|
Costs over time |
low, but you pay in lost hours |
a fee that grows with users and modules |
initial development, then hosting and maintenance |
|
Who owns it |
you |
the vendor, you have a licence |
you, code included |
When Excel is enough
When one or two people use it, there isn’t much data and the process changes often. Excel has one advantage no software has: you change it yourself, right away. The limit comes when the file becomes “the one only Mark knows how to use”, when two people open it at the same time, or when a mistake in a formula shifts a month’s figures without anyone noticing.
When off-the-shelf software makes sense
When the process is standard: invoicing, accounting, simple stock control, a CRM for the sales team. Mature products exist for these, with updates and support, and rewriting them from scratch rarely makes sense. If a ready-made program covers 80% of what you need and the rest can be handled with small adjustments, it’s usually the right choice. We’ll tell you so ourselves if that’s the case.
When custom pays off
- The way you work is an advantage worth keeping, not a habit to fix: quotes with particular rules, jobs with phases of your own, a service your competitors don’t offer.
- To get one thing done you use three programs and a spreadsheet, and someone spends their days copying data from one to the other.
- The off-the-shelf package forces you into long workarounds: fields used for something else, an export every evening, steps done on paper.
- Fees grow with every extra person or module, and over a few years they overtake what a tool of your own would cost.
- The software has to talk to customers or suppliers from outside: an ordering portal, job status, documents.
The answer is often a mix: you keep the accounting package you have and build custom only the part that doesn’t work today.
What the cost of custom business software depends on
There are no reliable surveys of custom software prices in Italy, and a number without the project would say little: the same word, “management software”, covers a job list for three people and a system that runs production, stock and shipping. What changes the cost, on the other hand, can be spelled out:
- How much it has to do: each area (orders, stock, jobs, shifts, documents) has its own screens, data and rules.
- How many special rules there are: a price list with discounts by customer and quantity costs more than a fixed one.
- Who uses it: just the office, or also workers on their phones, sales agents on the road, customers through a private area. Each type of user has its own roles and permissions.
- How many systems it connects to: accounting software, ERP, online shop, couriers, payments. A lot depends on what they offer: a system with documented APIs connects faster than one that only exports files.
- The data to bring in: years of spreadsheets to clean up and import are a job in themselves.
- Where it runs and who looks after it: servers, backups, updates and monitoring are a cost that carries on after launch.
That’s why an analysis comes before a quote: looking at how you work today, what data there is and where it lives. Without it, any figure is a guess.
How to start without replacing everything
The most common mistake is trying to replace everything at once: a hundred-page specification gets written, the project takes a year, and by the time it arrives the company has already changed. One step at a time works better.
1. Pick the point that hurts most
The step that wastes the most hours, or the one where most mistakes happen. There’s usually just one, and that’s where you start.
2. Design the screens before the code
The main screens are designed in Figma and tried out with the people who’ll use them every day. Changing a design costs little; changing software that’s already written costs a lot more. It’s the work we do in UI/UX design.
3. A small first version, connected to what’s already there
The first version does one thing well and talks to the systems you already use: it reads customers from the accounting software, sends orders to the online shop, exports what’s needed to Excel. Everything else keeps working as before.
4. Grow it by looking at the real software
After a few weeks of use you can see what’s really needed, which is often different from what you thought at the start. New features are added one at a time, tested first on a test environment.
That keeps the risk small: if the first version doesn’t convince you, you’ve spent little and learned a lot.
What to ask before having business software built
- Is the code mine? Can I take it to another developer if I ever need to?
- What technologies is it written in? Are they widespread and documented, or known only to whoever built it?
- Do we start with a first version, or is everything delivered at the end?
- How does it connect to the systems I already use, and what happens if one of them changes?
- Where does the data live, who does the backups and who keeps the software up to date after launch?
- Do I see changes on a test environment first?
Where we stand
Business software gets used for years, so it also matters who writes it and who looks after it afterwards.
- You talk to the people doing the work. We’re two people, Riccardo and Davide: we design and build the software ourselves, with no middlemen and no mark-ups. It’s the same work we do every day for other agencies, under white label.
- No Italian VAT on the invoice. We both work under the regime forfettario, the Italian flat-rate tax scheme for small sole traders, so our invoices carry no Italian VAT. How VAT applies in your country depends on who you are and where you’re based, so in practice it’s worth asking your accountant.
- We’ll still be here in a few years. We’ve been on the web since 2016, as Ortica since 2020, and we look after more than 200 sites. We work as equals, half and half, and each of us knows the other’s projects.
With us, code and data stay with the client, the software is written in widespread technologies like React and Next.js and Node.js, and when a full admin panel is needed we start from Payload CMS. If you like, we look after the server after launch. You’ll find how we work on the page about custom web apps and business software.
