Turn Your Spreadsheets
Into Software
At £10m+ turnover, a spreadsheet can become an unofficial system shared across finance, operations and sales. We replace the risky part with controlled software while preserving the rules and working habits people rely on.
Bespoke
NOT OFF-THE-SHELF
Controlled access
PERMISSIONS AND AUDIT LOG
Yours
CODE, DATA AND IP
When a spreadsheet becomes business-critical
Sheets are great for thinking. They're a terrible way to run an operation that more than one person depends on.
A bespoke internal tool used to mean six months and a big cheque. With AI-assisted development, that's now days.
The economics flipped. The spreadsheet doesn't have to win anymore.
TODAY'S SPREADSHEET
- Locks when two people open it
- Formulas only one person understands
- No permissions, no audit log
- Breaks on a paste, dies with its author
- Can't notify, can't integrate
BESPOKE SOFTWARE
- Multi-user, real-time, no locking
- Rules named, tested, visible to the team
- Role-based access and full audit log
- Validated inputs, daily backups
- Sends alerts, talks to everything else
What the spreadsheet is doing for you
A spreadsheet is software in disguise. Once you can see the parts, you can build them once and let them live where they should.
Data model
The tables your sheet was pretending to be. Customers, jobs, invoices, stock. Defined once, used everywhere.
Inputs
Forms, imports and integrations replace repeated typing and copying while preserving validation and review.
Rules
Your formulas, but named, tested and visible to the team. Not buried in column AF.
Views
Dashboards, lists and reports per role. Not one mega-sheet that nobody can read.
Automations
Emails, reminders, syncs and approvals that used to be someone's job. The software does them.
How we take it into live use
Our relevant systems cover recruitment, financial advice, engineering, construction and workshop operations. We start by tracing the formulas, exceptions and decisions people rely on in the existing workbook.
The first phase covers the highest-risk part of the workbook, its users, permissions and connected systems. The scope records what stays in the spreadsheet and what moves into controlled software.
START A SHEET AUDITSheet audit
We review the workbook with its owners and regular users. The output records its rules, data sources, dependencies, failure points and the part worth replacing first.
Model the data
We turn the tabs and formulas into a data model, business rules and user roles. You can review the workflow before we write production code.
Launch the first version
Usable internal tool live. Your team starts moving off the sheet straight away. We migrate the existing data.
Iterate
New fields, views and integrations are added in controlled releases as users expose the next useful requirement.
Examples of spreadsheet replacements
Engineering firms, recruiters, financial advisers, builders, manufacturers. All started on spreadsheets. None of them are anymore.
SEE OUR WORKWe replace the spreadsheet without losing the business rules
Olton Bedrooms now runs projects, workshop time and stock through an internal platform. AM2PM uses purpose-built recruitment workflows where its specialist CRM could not handle the work by itself.
When this is worth discussing
We work best when there is a real operating problem, enough volume to measure and people from the affected teams who can make decisions.
Usually a good fit
- An established UK business, usually with annual revenue above £10m
- A repeated process with a known cost, delay, error rate or capacity problem
- A senior sponsor and a day-to-day owner who understand the work
- Access to the relevant staff, systems, sample records and security requirements
We may point you elsewhere
- A standard product already covers the process well
- The requirement is a one-off small build with no wider operating case
- There is no owner or access to the people and data needed to test the result
- The plan relies on AI making high-impact decisions with nobody responsible for review
Questions before connecting the systems
Can't we just buy a SaaS for this?
Sometimes an established product is the better answer. We compare its licence, configuration and migration cost with a focused custom build, including the working rules or integrations that a standard product would leave outside.
How long does it take?
The first release covers the most valuable workflow, permissions and history while the spreadsheet remains available for comparison. Further scope follows after users and data owners accept the result.
Who owns the code?
You do. Source code, data, IP. We can host it for you, or hand it over to your team. No lock-in.
What about the existing data?
We migrate it. Years of rows, the merged cells, the colour-coded statuses, the comments in the corners. Cleaned up and loaded in.
How much does it cost?
Priced per phase, fixed before we start. You see the number after the scoping call, before anything's committed.
What if we change our mind halfway?
Good. That's why we build small and iterate. You see working software every week, so changes happen while it's cheap, not at the end.
Talk to us about the spreadsheet
Send us the spreadsheet, the people who use it and the systems around it. We will separate the business rules worth keeping from the workarounds that software should remove.