Bespoke or off-the-shelf software: which does a small business need?

For the work every business does the same way: accounts, payroll, email, a calendar. The standard tools are good, and building your own would be money for nothing. We'd tell you so.

For the part of the business that's yours: how you quote, book, schedule, certify or pay people. The part customers choose you for.

The signs that off-the-shelf has stopped fitting:

• You pay for several apps and someone copies between them.
• Staff keep a spreadsheet alongside the app, because the app can't do the bit that matters.
• You've changed how you work to suit the software, and it shows.

Often the answer is both. Keep the accounts package and the email. Build the part in the middle that runs your business your way, and have it work alongside them so nothing is typed twice.

If you already pay for several apps, some will go and some will stay. The honest answer depends on what each one does for you.

Who looks after it afterwards? Off-the-shelf software is looked after by the company that sells it. Bespoke software needs someone too, or it slowly stops fitting the business it was built for. What happens when the developer leaves is worth reading before you choose.

We build the bespoke part, shaped around how you really work, and then we stay: Binary Keep looks after it and keeps improving it with your OK at every step.

If your business runs entirely on someone else's platform, with nothing of your own to improve, we'll tell you that too.