Access · Excel · VB and Windows apps
Still running on a system nobody dares touch?
Most businesses we meet aren't starting from nothing. They run on an Access database from the 2000s, a spreadsheet that became the business, or a Windows app written years ago by a developer who has since moved on. It still works, mostly. It can't be changed, shared or left alone.
We replace these systems without stopping the business. Your data comes with you. Your staff keep working. What changes is that the system finally fits how you operate today.
01
Replacing an Access database
Access was a good answer in 2005. Twenty years on, the database that runs your orders, jobs or stock is usually the most fragile thing in the building.
We take the data and the rules out of the .mdb, rebuild the process around how you work now, and put it on a proper multi-user system your whole team can reach. The history comes with it. The fragility doesn't.
- Only opens properly on one PC.
- Corrupts when two people are in it at once.
- Nobody has the source, or the password.
- Every new report means a call to someone who left.
02
When the spreadsheet is the business
Excel is good for analysis and poor for running operations. Once a spreadsheet holds the quotes, the schedule or the stock, you have a system with no permissions, no audit trail and one owner.
We turn the working spreadsheet into a working system: one source of truth, the right people editing the right things, and the reporting you were building by hand produced for you. You keep Excel for what it's good at.
- Quotes_FINAL_v7.xlsx, and nobody is sure it's the final one.
- Formulas that only one person understands.
- The same figures typed into three places, and they don't match.
- Month-end takes a week because of it.
03
Moving a VB or Windows app to the cloud
Plenty of good businesses still run on a Visual Basic or Windows desktop application built in-house or by a local developer. It knows your business better than any off-the-shelf package ever will. It also lives on one ageing server, and every Windows update is a risk.
We read the existing application and its data, keep the rules the business still needs, drop the ones it doesn't, and rebuild it as a modern system your staff can use from the office, the warehouse or home. Hosted properly, backed up properly, and no longer dependent on one machine or one person.
- Runs on a server you daren't restart.
- The developer retired, moved on, or isn't answering.
- Can't be used from home, on site, or on a phone.
- Nobody knows whether the backups actually restore.
How we replace without breaking things
The business keeps running while the system changes underneath it.
The old system got you this far. We learn what it does before we decide what replaces it, and nothing is switched off until the new system has proved itself alongside it.
Your data comes with you
Years of orders, customers and history migrated and checked, not retyped.
Side by side first
The new system runs alongside the old until you trust it. Then the old one is retired, not before.
One part at a time
The most painful part goes first. Each step ships in weeks and pays for the next.
Staff learn it on the job
Built around how they already work, so training is a conversation, not a course.
Start with a Value Review
Start with a proper look at what you've got.
We look at the existing system, the data in it and the process around it, then tell you what's worth keeping, what needs replacing, and what it should return. No obligation to build anything with us.