Our Approach & FAQ

We build our software using the ‘Agile Software Development’ principle instead of the more rigid and historically difficult approach of fixing costs to an agreed spec – as in our experience – developing solutions is an organic process which often departs from the original concept during the course of its development.

The Advantages:

• your FileMaker Pro project is broken down into smaller tranches of ‘deliverable’ work that can be assessed and tested at set stages, with subsequent stages re-assessed and reviewed in light of feedback and testing.
• more accurate and realistic pricing made possible through the smaller, focused briefs offered by staged development.
• better management of the overall budget with any overruns managed in the context of the overall project requirements with non-essential items (for instance) being moved to a later phase in order to keep costs and delivery timescales on track.
• our ‘pay-as-you-go’ approach allows you to spread the cost of the development.

What this means to you:

• your project would be broken down into discreet stages with each stage being – typically – capped to a monthly spend to suit your available budget.
• each stage would culminate in our uploading and presenting the associated ‘stage’ (either onsite or remotely) for you to test and comment on prior to moving onto the next stage.

How this works:

• we agree on the work to be undertaken for the given stage.
• we scope out your requirements and calculate how much work we anticipate covering within your monthly budget.
• you provide us with a purchase order for the stage.
• we build and upload the stage to your cloud or on-premise server for you to test/comment on.
• we amend the stage then invoice the stage to reflect the actual time it took (within the range of costs).

The bottom line…

You can walk away with your solution at any stage of the process if you are in any way dissatisfied with our service…

You have built up your business over the years, recruiting and expanding to match the ever increasing demand for your products and services

You may have moved to larger premises and invested in office equipment, PCs and training and yet you still can’t seem to cope

Chances are, your software has not grown with you! Instead you find your staff are running a variety of disjointed programs, thrown together by incoming recruits, more-or-less tackling their individual needs.

Now imagine the alternative – a tailor-made, user-friendly solution, developed to your specifications and common to all users on your computer network. Accessible anytime, anywhere across both Apple devices and PCs. An effective solution that would emulate your paper-led procedures and promote consistency and teamwork.

A system that would cut out those repetitive, mind numbing tasks that so often drain office resources and morale. A system that would enable you to share up-to-the-minute information with your colleagues, process orders, raise invoices, analyse performance and proactively manage active and prospective clients.

We have over twenty years’ proven experience of developing such software in FileMaker for owner-operator home-based enterprises and multi-user, multi-site environments alike.

FileMaker is the world’s leading ODBC workgroup database software with more than 30 million users to its credit. It can be developed to provide powerful solutions for almost any conceivable business and will run on PCs (running Windows) or Apple computers (running OSX) as well as Apple’s iPhone and iPad

 FileMaker is used by organisations of all sizes and industry sectors, from sole traders working from home through FTSE 100 companies.

Here are just some of the businesses that are currently using FileMaker: Adobe; BBC; Black & Decker; Boeing; Cadbury; Comic Relief; Conde Nast; D&B; Film Four; FT; Jongleurs; NASA; Nokia; Nortel; Novell; Pizza Hut; Planet 24; Pret-a-manger; Reuters; Sothebys; Tesco; United Airlines.

Chris Scott of Adobe systems said of FileMaker “FileMaker is a great improvement over our previous database software in that it provides a level of speed that was just not possible before.”

Office-bound software solutions are a thing of the past with the FileMaker platform. Individuals can access their data anytime, anywhere by simply hosting your data on one of our professionally managed servers.

More details »

Yes, we can transfer data from a variety of file formats including Sage; Excel spreadsheets and csv files as well as live ODBC data feeds [SQL and MySQL]

Yes you do if sharing the solution with other users but don’t worry as we can supply you with a fully managed server with offsite backups or host your solution in the cloud. full details »

All our solutions come with a 30 day warranty and comprehensive onsite training followed by remote training and support as and when required.

We can either integrate elements of your existing solution into FileMaker or emulate your tried and trusted [paper-led] business processes across to a new FileMaker Pro solution.

The possibilities are only really limited by your imagination…

FileMaker’s ability to run across multiple devices and operating systems coupled with powerful features and a proprietory language built up over 30 years enables us to build almost any conceivable solution.

Here are some examples on how we have helped other companies harness the FileMaker Pro platform to expand upon and improve their existing business processes:

• enable individuals to access their data on iPads when away from the office  (VetIndex – Bath UK)
• email/ fax mass mailings to clients and prospects held in FileMaker (VetIndex – Bath UK)
• automate reminder emails for chasing up copy for bookings held in FileMaker (MediaClash – Bath UK)
• barcode and store stock inventory in FileMaker for warehouse fulfilment (M&G – Banbury UK)
• record and transact card payments against customer orders held in FileMaker (M&G – Banbury UK)
• develop bridges between FileMaker and Sage (Origin Publishing – Bristol UK)
• update websites with data held in FileMaker (Trainspotters Salvage – Stroud UK)
  
• monitor and manage University’s health & safety protocols via iPads (University of the West of England)