What I build, how long it takes, and roughly what it costs.

What you get

• A web application your team uses in the browser: booking and job tracking, quoting tools, stock and orders, customer or supplier portals.
• Connections to what you already use, such as your accounts package, email and calendars, through their official interfaces.
• Login, roles and an audit trail of who changed what.
• Source code in a repository owned by your business, plus a plain-English guide to running it.

The typical shape of a project

1. Discovery and proposal1 week
   Walk through the current process with the people who do it. Agree what version one includes.
2. First usable version2–4 weeks
   The core screens working against a copy of your data. You try it and tell me what is wrong.
3. Rounds of refinement1–4 weeks
   Weekly releases; small changes are part of the price, new ideas are written down for phase two.
4. Go-live and handover1 week
   Data moved across, staff shown how to use it, documentation and credentials handed over.

Usually built with

Python or TypeScript, PostgreSQL, server-rendered pages with a little JavaScript where it helps. Boring, well-supported tools that another developer can pick up.

What you get

• An automation that handles one well-defined job end to end, for example: supplier invoices in, draft bills out; enquiry emails triaged and answered in draft; delivery notes matched to orders.
• A human checkpoint wherever money, customers or legal obligations are involved. The automation prepares, a person approves.
• A readable log of every item it handled and why it decided what it did.
• A short written assessment of where your data goes, which AI provider processes it, and what they keep. Useful for UK GDPR records.

The typical shape of a project

1. Pick one processa few days
   We choose something frequent, dull and checkable. Not the hardest thing you do.
2. Pilot on real examples1–2 weeks
   I run past examples through it and we compare its answers with what your team actually did.
3. Supervised running2–4 weeks
   It runs on live work but every output is checked. We tune the rules until you trust it.
4. Hand it the routineongoing
   Confident cases flow through; unusual ones still land with a person. You can switch it off at any time.

What I will not do

Let an AI send money, sign anything, or reply to customers without a person seeing it first, unless you have watched it work long enough to decide otherwise. I will also tell you plainly when a simple rule or a form would do the job better than AI.

What you get

• Servers set up and secured, either a small machine in your office, a UK-hosted virtual server, or both.
• Self-hosted versions of common tools where it makes sense: file sharing, password manager, internal wiki, monitoring.
• Backups that follow the 3-2-1 rule, encrypted off-site, and a restore drill that is actually run and reported.
• Remote access for staff without opening holes in your firewall.
• Automated deployment and monitoring for software you already have, so updates are routine rather than nerve-wracking.

The typical shape of a project

1. Audit1–3 days
   What you run, where, who has access, and what would happen if it disappeared tomorrow.
2. Plan and costs2–3 days
   A diagram of the proposed setup and every running cost, so there are no surprises later.
3. Build and migrate1–3 weeks
   Done in stages, outside your working hours where needed, with a way back at each step.
4. Prove itfinal week
   A full restore from backup, in front of you, before I call it finished.

What you get

• Security updates applied and checked every month.
• Monitoring that alerts me before you notice, with a reply to any problem within one working day.
• A monthly restore drill and a one-page report of what was done.
• Time for small improvements, on the plans that include it. Unused hours do not roll over; I will remind you before they lapse.

Being straight about a one-person business

I am not a 24-hour help desk. Response times are set out in writing, I give notice of holidays, and every system I look after has a runbook so that another competent engineer could step in if I could not. That last part is not optional.