What We Shipped This Month: Bespoke Software for Trade Businesses

If you run a trade business, whether that's construction, groundworks or anything with crews out on site, you'll know off-the-shelf software rarely reflects the way you actually work. That's why we build bespoke software and custom apps that our clients will realistically use - and use regularly.

September was a busy one! We pushed out 317 changes across 5 custom apps for 7 clients. That's 117 new features and 84 fixes. Here are a few that we're most proud of:

An AI assistant that answers your business questions

For one client, we built a new admin tool allowing the owner to type or verbally ask a question about their business, like "how did last month compare?", and get charts back with a plain-English answer. For a busy business owner, it means no more opening historical spreadsheets to find out how things are going.

Invoicing software built into the app

Another client can now raise invoices without leaving their app. Staff can set a final invoice above the original quote when a job expands, and they can record when a customer accepts a quote over the phone. Quotes, jobs and invoices all live in one place.

Job scheduling software for real working days

We gave one client's job scheduling a proper overhaul:

• Two staff can now share a working day

• Job blocks are colour-coded, so the week is easy to see at a glance

• Travel time between sites is built in (game-changer!)

• There are slot reminders and notes

• Reference photos can be pinned to a job

Staff holiday tracking that adds up

For another client, staff can now see exactly how much holiday they've booked and taken. We also fixed a bug that was counting weekends and bank holidays as holiday days, which went down very well!

Behind the scenes

Not everything is shiny. We patched 17 security issues before they could cause trouble, and made 99 improvements to reliability, testing and general tidying. You won't spot most of it, and that's the idea.

Thinking about custom software for your trade business?

If you or your team are juggling spreadsheets, paper job sheets and three different apps, a single bespoke app could pull it all together.