Part of Civil Ashram · Civil Ashram IAS Our own product Arth Messenger — WhatsApp automation from ₹199 a monthArth Messenger — from ₹199/month See plans →
Civil Ashram Tech

Home Services Custom Business Software

Custom Business Software


The system your business actually runs on.

Most businesses are held together by a spreadsheet somebody clever built years ago, a WhatsApp group and a lot of remembering. It works until it does not. We replace that with software shaped around how you already work.

What this covers


What we mean by custom business software.

Not an app for your customers — that is a different job, and it has its own page. This is the software your own people use, all day, to get the work done.

The system that replaces the spreadsheet

Orders, jobs, stock, students, patients, properties, complaints — whatever your business counts. One place it lives, that two people can use at once without overwriting each other, that keeps a history, and that nobody can accidentally delete a column from.

Software that takes a job off somebody

If a person spends two hours a day copying figures between two systems, that is roughly fifty hours a month you are paying for and getting nothing back. Those hours are usually the easiest thing in a business to buy back, and the first thing we look for.

A dashboard that tells you the truth

Numbers you can act on, drawn from the systems you already have, updating themselves. Not a report somebody builds by hand on the fourth of the month, by which time it is describing the past.

Making two systems talk to each other

Your accounting package, your website, your payment provider, WhatsApp, a supplier’s portal. Most of them can be connected. When they are, a whole category of copying, checking and arguing about which number is right disappears.

Getting off software you have outgrown

Moving years of real data out of an old system without losing any of it is careful, unglamorous work. It is also where most of the risk in a project like this sits, so we plan it first rather than last.

What you get


Software you own, that somebody can still work on in five years.

The part that matters is not what it does on the first day. It is whether it can be changed on the thousandth.

Built around your process, not ours

We watch how the work is actually done before we design anything. Software that fights the way a team already works does not get used, however good it is.

Your data, in your hands

The database, the code and the hosting accounts are all yours, in your name, from day one. You can take the whole thing to another firm whenever you like. We think that is the only honest way to sell software.

Written down, not just built

Plain-language documentation for the people who use it, and technical notes for whoever maintains it next. A system only one person understands is a liability wearing the costume of an asset.

Training for the people who have to use it

Delivered to your team, not emailed to them. The commonest reason a good system fails is that nobody was shown how to use it properly in the first week.

How we price it


Discovery first, then a fixed price for the build.

Nobody can honestly quote a business system from a phone call, and anybody who does is either guessing or protecting themselves with a number far higher than the job needs.

OptionPrice in IndiaOutside India
Discovery & Design
Understand the problem properly and draw every screen. Ends with a firm price for the build.
₹1,10,000
Fixed price
$2,500
Internal Business Software
The system that replaces the spreadsheet, the notebook and somebody’s memory.
₹4,50,000
From
$10,000
Mobile App, first version
A real, published app for your customers — Android, iOS, or both.
₹6,75,000
From
$15,000

Prices exclude GST. Every one is a fixed price against a written scope — it does not move unless you ask for something that was not in it. See everything we charge, and what each option includes →

We start with a paid Discovery & Design stage. We map how the work is done now, draw every screen, and hand you a firm price for the build. That document is yours whatever you decide next — including taking it to another firm. It is not a sales trick with a deliverable attached.

After discovery, the build is a fixed price against a written scope. It does not move unless you ask for something that was not in it, and we price that separately for you to approve first.

What makes business software cost more: the number of distinct things people do in it, how many other systems it has to talk to, how much old data has to be moved, and whether different people need to see different things. What does not: the number of people who use it once it is built.

Who this is for


Businesses that have outgrown the spreadsheet.

The signs are usually the same ones, whatever the industry:

  • Two people have two different versions of the same file, and both are in use.
  • Somebody spends hours every week copying numbers from one place to another.
  • You cannot answer a simple question about last month without a lot of digging.
  • A mistake got through because the check depended on somebody remembering.
  • The one person who understands the system is going on leave and you are worried.
  • You are paying for software that does a tenth of what you need and none of it well.

Honestly

If a cheaper tool off the shelf would solve your problem, we will tell you which one and how to set it up, and we will not charge you to build something you did not need. Custom software is the right answer far less often than firms like ours pretend. It is the right answer when the way you work is the thing that makes you money.

Common questions


Asked before most projects start.

How is this different from your apps page?

That page is about software built for your customers — the app they download, the thing they log into. This page is about software built for the people inside your business. Many projects need both, and we build them together when they do.

Will we be locked in to you?

No, and we design against it deliberately. The code, the database and every account are in your name from day one, we use ordinary well-known technology rather than anything proprietary to us, and we hand over documentation written so that another firm could pick it up. If you leave, we would rather you left cleanly.

What happens to the data in our old system?

We move it, and we plan that first rather than last, because it is where most of the risk sits. You get a chance to check the moved data against the old system before anything is switched off, and the old system stays available until you are satisfied.

How long does something like this take?

Discovery is usually one to two weeks. The build depends entirely on what discovery found, which is the point of doing it. You get a written timeline with the fixed price, and we build in stages so you are using part of it long before all of it is finished.

Can you work with the software we already have?

Usually, yes, and it is often the cheaper answer. Connecting two systems you already pay for is a smaller job than replacing either of them. We look at that first.

Our other services


Most real problems sit across two of these.

Tell us what you are trying to fix.

A free 30-minute call, no obligation. If this is not the right service for your problem, we will tell you which one is.