Book a Free Site Audit
Shoebill Design Studio

Services · Custom Applications

Tools built around how you work

An internal tool built around how your team actually works, replacing the spreadsheet everyone is afraid to touch.

The Stone Care of Arizona field estimator, a custom application: a Housecall Pro estimate lookup, stone type and surface pickers, square footage, and a running estimate panel

Who this is for

Sound familiar?

You have a presence, but a manual internal process is eating hours

  • 01

    A process runs on a spreadsheet that works because one person maintains it

  • 02

    Your team is doing arithmetic a computer should be doing

  • 03

    You have outgrown the tool you started on and nothing on the market fits

  • 04

    The same information gets entered in more than one place every day

We have a spreadsheet that three people fight over every morning

What you get

What you get

  1. A web application your team signs into, on any device, with the right people seeing the right things

  2. Your existing data migrated in, cleaned up on the way, with the old spreadsheet kept as a record

  3. Connections to the systems the process already touches, so nothing is entered twice

  4. Source code, hosting and every account in your name, plus a guide someone else could pick up

How it runs

How it runs

Investment
In writing within 24 hours of the first call
Timeline
Simple builds live in five business days; larger ones get a date in the written scope
What moves the figure
  • How many distinct things the tool has to do, and how many kinds of user it has
  • How much existing data has to be moved in, and what state it is in
  • Which other systems it has to talk to, and whether they have proper APIs

The figure is in writing within 24 hours of the first call, with what is included, what is not, and the date. Small fixed-scope builds get their figure on the call; larger ones after a short read of what you have. Either way you see the number before you commit to anything.

Watch the process runA written map of how the work actually flows

We sit with the people who do the work and watch them do it, spreadsheet and all. The documented process and the real one are never the same. We write down the real one, and that becomes the specification.

Design the smallest useful versionA scope that ships the core first

We agree the one workflow that, if it worked properly tomorrow, would give the most hours back. That ships first. Everything else is a later phase with its own figure, so you are never paying for features you have not seen the need for.

Build with real data, earlyA working tool on your data within the first weeks

Your team uses the tool on real work while it is still being built, because nothing finds the gaps in a design like a Tuesday morning. Changes happen while they are cheap.

Migrate, launch, hand overThe tool live, the old process retired, everything in your name

We move the data in, run the old and new side by side until you trust it, then retire the spreadsheet. Code, hosting and accounts are transferred to you, with a guide written for whoever comes after us.

Related work

Where we have done it

Concept studies carry the dashed frame: how we would approach that kind of engagement, and what we would measure.

Home services

Stone Care of Arizona homepage with the hero, navigation and Get a Free Quote link

Stone Care of Arizona

An early-2000s website rebuilt as a modern layout built for conversion: a clear call to action on every page, and forms that tell the CRM where every lead came from.

View case study

LegalConcept study

Concept homepage for KC Personal Injury Law: roadside hero, Discuss Your Case button and three practice area tiles

KC Personal Injury Law

First call to a new case in four minutes instead of three and a half hours

View case study

Questions

Before you ask

Why not buy something off the shelf?

Sometimes you should, and we will say so on the first call if a product already does what you need. Custom makes sense when your process is the thing that makes you money and the off-the-shelf tool would make you change it. We build the tool around the process, not the other way around.

What happens to the data we already have?

It comes with you. We import it, clean up what is obviously wrong on the way, and keep the original untouched as a record. The old and new systems run side by side until you are satisfied nothing was lost.

Who can use it, and on what?

Anyone you give a login to, on a phone, a tablet or a desktop browser, with permissions so the office sees what the office needs and the field sees what the field needs. There is nothing to install and nothing to update.

How much is it?

In writing within 24 hours of the first call, with what is included and what is not. Small fixed-scope builds get their figure on the call; larger ones after a short read of what you have. You see the number before you commit to anything.

How long does it take?

Simple builds are live in five business days from the written scope, and a 48-hour rush is available. Larger builds get a date in the scope before anything starts, and you see the work on a real URL as it goes.

Not sure which one you are?

That is normal. Most businesses are in two at once. One call and we will tell you where to start.