Tailored software for SMEs, alongside your management software
Your management software keeps the accounts and the invoices. For the work it leaves out, you can have it customised by whoever sold it to you, or have software written that works alongside it, up to management software entirely your own.
Does an SME with off-the-shelf management software need custom software?
Only for the part of the work the management software does not cover, which today lives in spreadsheets or in one person’s memory. The management software stays where it is, with the accounts and payroll: the custom software connects to its interfaces and does the rest. With dotenv, the code stays with the company that paid for it.
When the management software you have is enough
If your accounts, e-invoicing and payroll sit in off-the-shelf management software, for that work the software is fine as it is. That work is done the same way in every company, and rewriting it from scratch would cost more than the licence you pay today.
It starts to feel tight when the work has something in it that is yours alone: how you prepare a quote, or how you follow a customer after the sale. Some signs:
- An order entered in the management software and copied by hand into a spreadsheet, so it can be followed.
- A file that only one person knows how to update, and that stands still when they are on holiday.
- Customers who write to ask how far along an order is, and someone who looks in the management software and replies.
- An export copied every month to find out a number the management software already holds.
The Excel spreadsheet next to the management software
If the part your management software does not cover lives in an Excel spreadsheet, look at it closely. Inside are your company’s rules written as formulas: how a price is calculated, when an order is late, who needs to be told, which customer has terms of their own. It is already a list of requirements, written by the people who do the work.
For a telecommunications operator, voice traffic was extracted by hand into an Excel spreadsheet while its customers grew from 400 to 2,000. The system we wrote to replace it handles 500,000 calls a month, from five different traffic providers.
Before replacing a spreadsheet like that, you need to know who fills it in and who uses its numbers. Bring it to the first call as it is, even if it is messy.
Customising TeamSystem Gamma, or building alongside it
Gamma is customised by TeamSystem, or by a company in its network. dotenv writes the software that works alongside the management software and talks to it through its interfaces.
Customising management software means changing it from the inside: one more module, a new screen, a field that was not there, a piece of code written inside the product.
TeamSystem, which makes Gamma and Alyante, works with resellers and partners in almost every region of Italy, and entrusts its system integrators with the “installation, configuration and customisation” of its ERP solutions. Passepartout, for Mexal, describes a proprietary development environment and “the network of qualified Passepartout partners”.
If customising is the right route for you, before signing get answers to four questions from whoever proposes it.
- Is the need already covered by a module that exists, and just needs switching on?
- Who realigns the customisation when a new version of the management software comes out, and is that work in the support contract?
- Who owns the code of the customisation?
- Can the data it produces be read by another program too?
Integrating with your management software
Integrating means leaving the management software where it is and writing, alongside it, a program that does the missing part. The program reads the data where it sits and writes into the management software what it produces. It can be a portal where customers and suppliers see the status of their orders, or an app for people who work off-site.
The connection uses whatever the product allows: exchange files, reading and writing on the database, a program that acts as a go-between, or interfaces we write ourselves where the management software has none. Several vendors document theirs publicly: Microsoft for Business Central, SAP for the Business One Service Layer, Odoo for its external APIs, Zucchetti for the MAGO APIs of MagoWeb. Danea Easyfatt exchanges data in a format of its own, Easyfatt-xml.
The same goes for a CRM. Salesforce and HubSpot publish the APIs an external program uses to create and edit their data, contacts included.
A panel we wrote for a virtual server provider, from which its customers buy and manage their own servers, reads and writes inside Navision, Microsoft’s management software that is now called Business Central. With Dynamics 365 and with other commercial management systems we do the same: data is read and written through their interfaces.
If the vendor sells the interfaces separately, ask before signing. How they really work becomes clear when the system is opened up.
Connecting to the programs already in place is the part that takes the most time in a project. The cost of the connection is included in the quote, and who keeps it running when the management software changes version is decided in the agreement.
When a part of the management software can no longer handle the work, the new software can also take its place.
Management software written for you
At the end of the same road there is custom management software, written from scratch for you. It makes sense when the missing part is as big as the rest, and the processes that matter are yours: delivery planning, for example, or the rounds your vehicles make in the field.
Even then the accounts can stay in the management software you have, and the new software passes it the data it needs.
Management software written for you has to change when your processes change, and that work is a separate agreement. Budget for it from the start, together with the cost of building it.
What kinds of work we write it for, from production to e-commerce, is on the custom management software page.
If your company has no IT department
If nobody in the company works on IT full time, the risk is signing a project that lasts months without being able to judge halfway through whether it is going well. To judge, it is enough to try the software on your work, with your data.
That is why we work in phases, and each phase is decided by looking at the results of the one before.
Before the code there is a prototype to click through, with your orders, your customers and your warehouse items inside. The people who take the orders and prepare the shipments try it, and say where a field is missing or a step is one too many compared with how they work in the management software today. The prototype and the design stay yours even if you stop there.
Where the software and the data run is up to you: on your servers or in the cloud.
Who works on it, on both sides
We are 11 people across management and team, and dotenv has existed since 2020. We put at least two of them on every project, and everything they do is written down, so your project keeps going even when one of them is on holiday. dotenv is certified to ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 27001, and the standard, number and expiry date of each certificate are on the certifications page.
On your side you need two roles, and in an SME they can be the same person. Someone who decides, so the project waits as little as possible for a signature. And someone who does the work every day, because they are the one who tries the prototype and says where the software gets it wrong.
What must stay with your company
The code belongs to whoever paid for the work, so to you, and with it the documentation and the environments: what another supplier needs to pick up the work, if one day you choose one.
Before signing with anyone, us included, it is worth knowing where the code sits while it is being written, who holds the keys to the servers and the domain, where the documentation is and what you receive if you stop halfway. Access to the code during development is agreed in the contract.
If the software has a defect after release, fixing it is on us: it is the statutory warranty. Support over time, and the changes that will be needed when your work changes, are signed separately and paid for. If you want guaranteed response times, they are written into that agreement, and they apply during the warranty too.
What it costs, and how long it takes
Two things weigh on the price more than the others: the size of the part to build and the number of programs already in use that need connecting. That is why the quote comes after the site visit, with the scope written together.
The contact form asks you for a budget range. If the one you have in mind is out of scale for the work you describe, we tell you on the first call.
A custom project lasts months. A business app, among those we have made so far, has taken at least two months before becoming part of people’s work.
What to prepare for the first call
It starts with a call, free of charge. Then a site visit, to see how you work today.
The call can also be a video call, and there are only a few things to prepare.
- The work you want to change, in your own words: where time is lost, where mistakes happen.
- The programs you use today, even just the names: the management software, the CRM, the spreadsheets.
- What you have already written, if anything: a document, a list, a diagram.
- Who decides in the company, and who will do that work with the new software.
How we also work: For startups · For enterprises · For the public sector
Frequently asked questions
- Can TeamSystem Gamma be customised?
- Yes, and TeamSystem or a company in its partner network does it. dotenv does not do customisation inside the product. We write the software that works alongside the management software and talks to it through the interfaces the management software makes available.
- Does the new software talk to the management software we have?
- Yes, in the way the management software allows: exchange files, the database, a program that acts as a go-between, or interfaces we write where they are missing. The cost of the connection is included in the quote.
- How much does custom software for an SME cost?
- It depends mostly on how big the scope is and how many programs already in use it has to connect to. The quote comes after the site visit, and in the contact form we ask you for a budget range.
- Do we need an IT department to follow the project?
- You need one person who can decide, and someone who does the work every day and tries the prototype. We follow the rest, with at least two people on every project and written documentation.
- Do we pay for the first call?
- It is free, and it can also be a video call. The site visit comes after.
- What happens after release?
- We fix the defects of the delivered software ourselves, under the statutory warranty. Support and further development are signed separately, for a fee, with guaranteed response times if you need them.
Tell us about the work you want to change.