Should you buy business software or build a custom tool?

For many businesses, the best answer is to keep the core software that works and build the missing pieces around it. If your team fills the gaps with spreadsheets, copied emails and manually assembled reports, those recurring steps are worth looking at for automation.

Your business has its own combination of customers, approval rules, reporting needs and existing tools. Even another business in the same industry may work differently. Standard software handles the common requirements; it may leave your team to connect the rest.

ProofBox builds automations and custom software for those gaps. The aim is practical: less copying, less chasing, fewer things falling through the cracks and more time to run the business.

Look for the processes held together with “duct tape”

The best place to start is the work people repeat around your software. Ask your team: “What do you have to copy, update, send or assemble every day or every week?”

The answers might sound like this:

These are examples of projects to scope, rather than a fixed list of included features. The right approach depends on the information, the rules and what your existing software allows us to connect.

A spreadsheet or an email is useful on its own. The opportunity appears when people become responsible for repeatedly moving information between them just to keep a process working.

Why buying another standard product can leave gaps

A packaged product is built to serve many businesses. Your business needs a particular combination of steps, people and tools to work together.

That difference is where the workarounds appear. The sales system holds one part of the information, the accounting system holds another, and a spreadsheet becomes the place that brings them together. Someone remembers to send the email. Someone else builds the report.

Over time, these extra steps can become a substantial part of the job—even though the business is already paying for software. Another standard product may solve some problems while leaving the connections and exceptions for staff to manage.

The question is whether a product supports the complete piece of work well enough. If staff still need several manual steps around it, include those steps when assessing its value.

Keep your core software and fill the gaps

You may already have an accounting system, customer database or scheduling tool that does its main job well. Replacing it could mean moving years of information and retraining the team. A smaller addition may solve the problem that actually bothers you.

Depending on the need, that addition could be:

• An automation: a sequence of agreed steps that runs when something happens, such as an order being approved.
• A connection between tools: information entered in one place becomes available where it is needed next.
• A small custom application: a simple screen where your team can see outstanding work, make decisions or prepare a report.

These can work together. For example, a custom approval screen could sit alongside your existing order system, then send approved details to the next team. Staff keep using the core system while the additional software handles the missing steps.

BDC describes building workflows across core systems as a way to reduce manual work while retaining existing tools. This is a useful way to think about custom development: a focused improvement around the business you already operate.

Why smaller custom projects are more practical now

Software development has changed. Developers can use reusable building blocks, existing connections and modern development tools to reduce the amount of work needed for a focused solution. Less work building the foundations can mean more of the budget goes towards the process you actually want fixed.

For one example of this shift, Microsoft's application-modernization guidance describes how its development platform can reduce development time and cost while connecting existing systems. That is one approach, rather than a requirement to buy Microsoft software or a claim that every project uses the same tools.

For a business owner, the practical change is that custom software no longer needs to mean a large replacement system. A narrowly defined process can be a much smaller project. Routine steps can run from start to finish where the rules are clear, while approvals and unusual cases still go to the appropriate person.

What does a simple automation cost?

A few thousand Canadian dollars can be a realistic build budget for a simple, clearly defined process automation. This is indicative budgeting guidance, not a fixed ProofBox package or quote. Applicable taxes and any recurring costs need to be allowed for separately.

The strongest candidates have a clear starting point, predictable rules and a small number of systems that provide a workable way to exchange information. Preparing a recurring report from consistent data is a different project from interpreting hundreds of document layouts or replacing a whole business system.

The price depends on the work involved: understanding the process, making the connections, building the solution, testing it and getting it into use. Ask for the build cost and the ongoing software, hosting, support and maintenance costs together.

A good first project is small enough to define clearly and frequent enough that removing the work matters.

How a small project can return many times its cost

The build cost happens once; the manual work it replaces happens repeatedly. That is why a focused automation can create value well beyond its initial price.

Consider this illustrative business case, not a quote or measured client result. Assume an automation releases 10 staff hours each week, after allowing for remaining checks and corrections. Value that time at CAD $40 per hour, including employer costs, across 50 working weeks per year.

Under those assumptions, the value of recovered time is 10 times the total project cost over three years. All amounts are before tax, with unchanged workload, savings and costs assumed throughout. The example compares the value of staff capacity with project spending; it does not mean CAD $60,000 automatically comes off payroll. The business benefits when that time can be used productively or allows actual spending to be avoided.

Time is only one possible source of value. A useful project may also help:

• Speed up service: work moves to the next person without waiting for a manual update.
• Avoid losses: missed follow-ups, forgotten billable work or duplicate processing can be flagged.
• Improve decisions: managers receive current, consistent information instead of waiting for someone to assemble it.
• Handle growth: the team can process more work without adding the same amount of administration.

Assess those benefits against your own process. Keep them separate where they overlap: the same recovered hour should not be counted again as a second saving. Start by measuring the current workload, then test whether the proposed improvement delivers the expected result.

When should you buy, connect or build?

These routes can be combined. The aim is a reliable way to get the work done, with the fewest unnecessary steps for your team.

BDC's process-improvement guidance recommends understanding how the work actually happens, including the people who do it. Ask them to show the normal process and what happens when something goes wrong. That often reveals the most useful place to start.

What to agree before the build

A clear scope should explain what starts the process, what happens automatically, what still needs a person's decision and how a problem is brought to someone's attention.

Also agree who can access the information, who looks after the solution, what ongoing charges apply and how changes will be handled. Make sure the business can retrieve its information and understands who controls the code and accounts. Those details help keep a useful improvement useful over time.

How ProofBox can help

We help businesses turn processes held together by spreadsheets, emails and manual updates into automations and custom software built around the work. That can mean keeping your core software, connecting it to other tools and adding the missing pieces your team needs.

You do not need a technical specification. Show us a recurring task: the spreadsheet someone maintains, the emails they send, the presentation they populate or the information they enter more than once. We can help identify what can be automated and scope the agreed solution around your existing systems.

Specific connections, delivery, ownership and ongoing support are agreed for the project. We build the solution around a defined business outcome, with checks for the situations your team needs to handle.

Talk to us about the work you keep repeating. Start with one process that consumes time every week. It could be a much smaller project—and a more valuable improvement—than you expect.

Editorial standards · Suggest a correction