Custom business software: ERP, MES, warehouse and CRM built around how your company works
For manufacturing SMEs, installation businesses, retail and services in north-east Italy and Europe. What it costs, how long it takes and when it really pays off compared with off-the-shelf software.
Custom business software is built on your company's processes, instead of bending the company to the software. It can be a custom ERP, a MES for production, a warehouse system, a CRM or a mix of these, connected to the programs you already have. Development is followed by the same person you talk to, with collaborators when the work needs it, and the code stays yours.
Custom or off-the-shelf: when does custom pay off?
If an off-the-shelf system does almost everything you need, take it: it costs less and starts sooner, and I will tell you before you spend. Custom pays off when:
- the way you work is an advantage, and a standard program would force you to change it;
- today you use three programs plus Excel, and the same data is retyped;
- you need links with machines, industry software or documents arriving in different shapes;
- you pay a per-user fee that grows with every new person.
For installation businesses there is a middle way: iTER7, ready to use, at €99 or €199 a month per company, customised where needed.
What kinds of custom software do I build?
- MES and traceability for production: batches, phases, checks and labels alongside your ERP. See custom MES for SMEs and packaged or custom MES.
- Custom warehouse software: receipts, internal moves, QR labels, stocktaking, for example at a waste treatment plant and a wood company.
- Custom ERP for head office and stores: at a chain of fashion stores, one system for stock, sales and documents, in use from 2012 until the chain was sold.
- Software for installation businesses: jobs, field visits, voice-dictated work reports, van stock. See plumbers and electricians.
- Custom CRM: contacts, appointments on the sales team's calendars, and AI preparing replies for a person to check.
- Links between systems: getting the programs you have to talk. See business software integration.
How much does custom business software cost?
- Free assessment: you tell me about your request and I reply in writing with a proposal and a quote.
- On-site analysis, when needed: a paid consulting step, written in the quote (business process analysis).
- Clickable mockup in 15-20 days: €600 to €1,500, fully deducted from the total if you go ahead.
- Fixed-price development with a written quote, paid in stages with a working demo every two weeks; the first module usually goes live within 5-12 weeks of the mockup.
Development ranges from a few thousand euros to €50,000 and more, depending on the departments involved. No per-user fees. Details on the pricing page and in the custom business software guide.
What about AI?
Business software with AI makes sense where it saves time you can measure: reading delivery notes and invoices, reading customer orders, answering questions with an assistant that asks for confirmation, forecasting orders. Where a rule is enough, we use the rule. If needed, the AI models run on the company's own computers, without sending documents outside the European Union.
Some custom software already built
- A plant wholesaler: about 150 supplier invoices a week, retyped by hand at about 4 minutes each. The prototype reads them and asks for confirmation only on uncertain lines; estimate three quarters less time, to be verified on real invoices.
- A line making 7,500 battery packs a year: MES with a digital passport for every pack, connected to the existing system.
- A waste treatment plant: every package with its QR label, connected to the industry software.
- A sheet-metal manufacturer: production scheduling with "what if" simulation. Prototype.
- An engineering studio for solar on apartment buildings: study, business plan and meeting documents from a single record, instead of drawing the same system three times. Being set up.
More examples, with the role in each, in the portfolio.
The next step
If you need someone to lead the whole technical side, not just one system, for a few companies I work as a fractional CTO.
If you like, write me a few lines about how you work today. I will reply in writing with a proposal and a quote, with no obligation. On site across the Veneto region, remotely in the rest of Italy and Europe.