The process, step by step

The enquiry form gets us the shape of the problem. The call goes deeper: what systems you run, how you actually use them, who touches what, where it slows down and what that costs in hours or dollars. No slides in either direction.

• You get: a straight read on whether this is worth building, including "keep your spreadsheet" when that is the truth.
• You bring: the problems as they are, and the screens you use every day. Do not tidy anything up for us; the untidy version is the useful one.

Then a task for you. Run one ordinary operational day and write every step down as it happens: the call that came in, where it was typed, what was looked up, who was told, what got printed, what was re-typed somewhere else. Not the process as the manual says it goes; the day as it actually went. We send a one-page sheet for it, so it takes minutes rather than hours.

That log is the most useful document in the job. It is how we understand the process without guessing, and it is where the double-handling, the workarounds and the after-hours jobs show themselves.

• You get: your own process on paper, often for the first time, and a build that fits it instead of the other way round.
• You bring: one ordinary day and a pen. Whoever runs the office is usually the right person to hold it.

With the day in hand we agree three things. What is to be built, in plain words. Which systems it plugs into, Xero or MYOB, the fleet tracker, the supplier portal, whatever the day showed. And the look: you pick from the plates on the designs page or bring something of your own. We then propose the final design and the build scope, with a fixed price and a date. You correct it until it is true.

What is agreed is what is built. That rule prevents the two common failures of custom software: scope that drifts and invoices that surprise. Changes mid-build are raised, priced in writing, and approved or parked, like variations on a job site.

• You get: the design, the scope document, a fixed written price and a delivery date.
• You bring: an hour or two of reading and correcting, and a decision on the look.

You get an update every week, and several in a week when the work calls for it: a working link, what changed, what is next. There is no reveal at the end. By the final week the system is already familiar, and launch is a formality.

The single biggest lever on build time is you being reachable. Correspondence through the week is recommended: a question answered the same day is a day not lost, and a correction made in week two costs nothing.

• You get: a working link every week from the first week, on your real data.
• You bring: fifteen minutes a week to look at it, and one person able to answer questions quickly.

At the start we decide together whether the system runs through us or through you. At the end we ask again, in case anything has changed. Both answers are fine.

We also settle how it is paid. Pay once, half to start and half at handover. Or pay it off, twelve months for a small build and up to thirty-six for the rest, twenty percent on top, running on hosting we manage until the last payment makes it yours. The cost page has both.

Through you: we set it up on your own service, in your name, with your credentials, and leave written instructions that any developer or IT person can follow to run it, change it, or take it somewhere else. You are never dependent on us.

Through us: Blinco Hosted. Servers we manage, watched around the clock, a person on the end of an incident, and a change budget every month, billed monthly.

Either way the same promise holds. If something is broken, outside what was promised, or different from what was wanted, fixing it is part of the job. If the service breaks for a reason tied to the backend, it gets fixed. No meter starts ticking.

Software changes. When a build talks to Xero or a fleet tracker and that program changes, the fix is on us for the first twelve months. After that it is covered by Blinco Hosted, or billed separately as it comes up. We say so up front because we cannot maintain software indefinitely for free. The detail is on the cost page.

• You get: a running system you own, instructions written for an outsider, and an exit that is always open.
• You bring: a decision at the start, and a second look at the end.