CRM service
Custom CRM application development
Portals, internal tools and automations for the part of your process the platform does not cover, built on top of the CRM you already pay for.
When configuration runs out
A lot of the requests that arrive as “we need a custom CRM” are configuration problems, and the honest answer is to fix the configuration for a fraction of the price. You will hear that from me when it applies, because a custom build you did not need is the most expensive possible way to solve a settings problem.
The genuine cases look different. A workflow with conditional logic no rules engine can express. A customer-facing portal where clients see their own records without occupying a CRM seat. A quoting calculator specific to how your industry actually prices. An internal tool for a team whose work does not resemble a sales pipeline in the first place. Record structures or volumes the platform charges punitively for.
The working rule is to build the smallest thing that solves it, and to keep it on top of the platform rather than beside it. Custom code that duplicates the CRM’s own data is how companies end up with two systems and no source of truth. Code that extends the CRM leaves you with one system that does one more thing.
What is included
What gets built
Customer and partner portals
Somewhere clients can see their own records, submit requests or approve documents, without needing a CRM licence each.
Internal applications
Tools for teams whose process is not a sales pipeline, sharing the same customer records instead of starting another silo.
Quoting and pricing tools
Configurators that handle the rules your industry prices on and write the result back onto the deal.
Automation beyond the rules engine
Logic with conditions, loops and external lookups that the built-in workflow builder cannot express.
API and middleware work
Services that sit between your CRM and something else, doing the translation and the retry logic properly.
Reporting the platform will not do
Calculations and views native reporting cannot produce, built against the same data rather than a copy of it.
Getting off the critical spreadsheet
The sheet that quietly runs part of your business turned into something with permissions, history and a backup.
Handover and source access
You own the code and the accounts it runs on, written up so another developer can pick it up without ringing me.
How it runs
How a build runs
Challenge the requirement
First we check whether configuration solves it. If it does, that is the recommendation, and the project gets much smaller or disappears entirely.
Specify and quote
What it does, what it deliberately does not, what it runs on and what it costs to keep running. Fixed price against that document.
Build in stages
Working software you can use at each stage, rather than a single delivery at the end that turns out to be the wrong thing.
Deploy and hand over
Deployed to accounts you own, with the source, the credentials and documentation aimed at a developer who has never met me.
Custom development questions
Do we actually need custom development?
Often not. A good share of the enquiries I get are solved by configuring the CRM properly, and I would rather say so on the first call than sell a build. The test is whether the platform genuinely cannot express what you need, or whether nobody has yet sat down and worked out how it could.
Who owns the code?
You do. It gets deployed to accounts in your name and you receive the source. I have no interest in holding a client through infrastructure, and a one person practice being a single point of failure is a fair thing for you to worry about.
What does it cost to run afterwards?
Hosting for a small portal or middleware service is usually modest, and the expected figure goes in the quote rather than arriving as a surprise. Platform API limits sometimes matter more than hosting does, so those get checked while specifying rather than after.
What if you are unavailable later?
That is precisely why the code is yours, the accounts are in your name, and the documentation is written for somebody who has never spoken to me. Any competent developer familiar with the platform can take it on.
Which platforms can you build on?
HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM Plus, monday CRM, Close and Brevo all have workable APIs and I build against them. What is possible varies by platform and by your plan tier, so that gets confirmed before a quote rather than assumed.
Find out whether you need a build at all
Describe what you are trying to do that the CRM will not. If configuration solves it, that is the answer you will get.