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CodeHero

built to order

Custom software development company for US companies

The engineering is the same wherever you are. We replace the spreadsheet and the Access file with a service that has a schema, migrations and an audit log. What changes for a US client is the paperwork and the clock, so both go in writing before the work starts.

Get a quoteA five-field form. What comes back is a scope, a price and a date for the assessment.

USA

Contracting is an MSA with a statement of work per phase. Governing law, invoicing currency and IP assignment are yours to set, and the overlap with your working hours goes into the SOW as a number rather than as a promise on a website. We work across US time zones every day, and standups land inside your morning rather than at the end of it.

18 days to a first working version

Shadow IT is struck through because it does not get ported. Once the process has an owner and a log, the private copies stop being worth maintaining.

Spreadsheets

Excel, an Access file, and a reconciliation someone does by hand each morning.

  • spreadsheet + emailExcel · Outlook
  • access.mdbAccess
  • manual reconciliationpeople
  • shadow ITunowned

A service

One domain service, one web client, a schema with migrations, an append-only log.

  • domain serviceGo
  • web clientTypeScript
  • postgresschema + migrations
  • audit logappend-only

18 days to a first working version

Shadow IT is struck through because it does not get ported. Once the process has an owner and a log, the private copies stop being worth maintaining.

How the work goes

The first day is spent watching the work rather than specifying it. Requirements documents describe the process someone wishes existed.
  1. 01days 1–2

    Watch the work happen

    We sit with the people doing it and read the formulas in their spreadsheet. The exceptions they handle without thinking are the ones that break a build on day fifteen.

  2. 02days 2–5

    Model the data and settle the rules

    Schema, states, who is allowed to change what. This is where the arguments happen, and having them here costs a fraction of having them the day before you go live.

  3. 03days 4–12

    Build one path end to end

    A complete path from input to report, in production, used by people who do the job. A demo environment tells you nothing about whether the thing is usable.

  4. 04days 11–18

    Migrate and turn the old file off

    Import the history, run both for a period, then remove write access to the spreadsheet. A system nobody is required to leave never gets left.

What the platform does, what a person does

The mix shifts across the project. More platform at the start, more people around cutover, when the open questions stop being technical.
Every generated file is reviewed as a pull request by the engineer who will be answering for it later.
What the platform does, what a person doesWho does itNotes
Reading the existing Access queries and Excel formulasPlatformThey come out as readable rules a person can disagree with in a meeting.
Deciding which rules are real and which are habitsEngineerOnly your people know that the Tuesday exception exists because of one supplier.
Service, schema and migrationsPlatformGenerated from the agreed model, then reviewed line by line before it lands.
The screens people live inBothThe daily path gets designed by a person. The admin forms around it do not need one.
Importing and reconciling the historyBothLoading is mechanical. Deciding what to do with rows that never balanced is not.
Cutover planEngineerWhich date, who is on call, what the rollback is.

The team that builds it

More than ten years on other people's systems and dozens of migrations delivered: Access and Excel processes, VB6 and Delphi clients, PHP monoliths, AS/400 policy administration, plant floors held together by macros. Scheduling, claims, billing, inventory, dispatch, reporting. We have built all of it before, and the shape of the work repeats far more than anyone expects.

The assessment is the cheap way to see this for yourself. Bounded work with a written output: the data model as we understand it, the rules we pulled out of your spreadsheet, and a phased plan with prices against it.

Questions we get from engineers

What stack, and can our team maintain it?
Go on the server, TypeScript in the browser, Postgres underneath. Deliberately dull: a competent team picks it up without a course, and nothing in it depends on a vendor being in business next year.
Who owns the code and the data?
You do, from the first commit. Repositories, deploy pipeline, database, all yours. If you take over after phase one, the handover is part of the phase rather than a negotiation.
How do you price it?
Fixed per phase. The assessment produces the scope and the number arrives with it, usually within two days of getting access.
Can you work alongside our developers?
Yes, and it usually goes better that way, because your engineers hold the domain knowledge and end up owning the code. We staff around whatever your team already covers.
How fast can you start?
Within about two days of a signed statement of work, and the assessment can run while contracting finishes. Most projects have a first working path in front of real users inside three weeks.

Show us the spreadsheet

Send the shape of the process and roughly how many people touch it. We come back with what the assessment covers, how long the build takes and what it costs.

Get a quote

The first reply comes from an engineer, usually asking who owns the process today.