Software written for you
A developer you choose, building exactly what you asked for, in your city.
Better there
- It fits your process rather than the other way round
- You own the code outright
- Not one feature you will never use
- The person who built it answers the phone
Better here
- The first version costs less than you expect and the fifth year costs more
- One developer leaving is the whole system becoming unmaintainable
- Act 1107, the 2025 VAT structure and every change after it are yours to implement
- Nobody has run it against a second business, so the bugs are found in yours
A bespoke build is right when your process is genuinely your advantage. It is wrong when what you need is stock, payroll and VAT done properly, because those are the same in every firm and somebody has already paid to get them right.
Three rules we hold ourselves to
A comparison page is the easiest page on a website to make dishonest, and the easiest for a reader who has used the other product to catch. These are the rules, written down so you can hold us to them.
Each comparison opens with what the other product does better, in our words, before anything about us. The database will not accept one that leaves that out.
Their licence costs change without telling us. Ours are on the pricing page in full. Anything else on this page would be us quoting a number we cannot stand behind.
The verdict on the first comparison below is: keep it. If not one of the five said something like that, you would be right not to believe the other four.
What we test, and how often we revisit it
Software moves. A comparison written in good faith goes stale, and the honest thing is to say how.
These are drawn from what firms switching to us brought with them, and from the vendors' own documentation. If one of them has fixed something we say it does not do, tell us and we will change the row.
That is a real risk and it belongs on this page rather than in a footnote. It is also why the data you put in is exportable in full, in a documented format, without asking us.
Not hidden on a roadmap. Anything listed there as not built is not built, and nobody will tell you otherwise on a call.
What each one is for, and where it runs out
The cards above are the full comparison. This is the version for somebody who has to summarise five options in a tender document by five o'clock, and it is as fair as we can make a summary written by one of the five.
| What you would be buying | Where it fits | Where it runs out |
|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks | A firm that needs books kept properly and little else beyond them | Stock on a shelf, a job on a press and a person on a shop floor, all of which sit outside it |
| Sage | A finance department that wants a long-established ledger and the people who already know it | Ghanaian statutory rates as editable rows, and a plant that has to keep working when the line drops |
| Odoo | A business with somebody technical to configure it and keep configuring it | The cost of that person, which is the part of the licence fee that is left off the quotation |
| Software written for you | A process that genuinely resembles nothing else, where fitting in would cost more than building | Year two, when the developer has moved on and the only documentation is the code |
| The spreadsheet you have | One person, one site, and an amount of work that fits in one head | The morning a second person needs the same file at the same time, and one of them loses an hour |
Six things to ask every supplier, in the same words
Put all six to whoever you are speaking to, ours included, and compare the answers rather than the brochures. Our answer is written under each one so you can mark us on the same sheet as everybody else.
A sample is not an export and a report is not an export. Ask for the whole thing, in a format that opens somewhere else. Ours is a button on every list and the file is CSV, and there are nine sections of it — accounting, clients, suppliers, services, hire purchase, recruitment, training, team and oversight.
Not whether it has an offline mode, which everybody says yes to. Ask them to unplug the router and keep working, then plug it back in and show you what reconciled. A shop floor terminal that stops when a router does has stopped the press.
VAT, NHIL and the GETFund levy under Act 1151, the PAYE bands, the SSNIT tiers. Ask whether a rate change is a row an administrator edits on the day it is gazetted, or a release they wait for. Ours is a row, with the source note beside it.
Licence, support, the users you will have hired by then, and the cost of whoever configures it. Ours is computed on the pricing page from the number of people and the modules you pick; ask the others to put theirs in writing before you compare anything.
Every supplier has them. The question is whether they are on the public site or in a roadmap you are shown after signing. Ours are on the pricing page, named, where a stranger can read them.
Any supplier can produce a happy reference. Ask for one in your own trade and your own size, and ask that customer what the first three months were like rather than what they think of the software now.
Ask for each of these to be shown on a screen rather than described. A supplier who will demonstrate the first one in the first meeting has already told you most of what you need to know.
What a switch takes out of your year
Everything above this band is about the software. This is about the move, which is the part that actually decides whether changing is worth it — and the part a supplier has the least reason to describe accurately.
Both firms on the case studies page said the same thing, and both said the software was ready before their data was. Duplicate customers, stock codes that mean two different things, a chart of accounts nobody has pruned in nine years. That work is yours and it is worth doing whoever you buy from.
A month entered in both systems, closed in both, compared line by line. It is genuinely double work for four weeks, and it is the step that lets your accountant sign the comparison rather than hope.
Training is a day. The fortnight after it is the stretch where every job takes ten minutes longer because somebody is making sure they pressed the right thing. Budget for it and it passes; pretend it is not there and it looks like the software is slow.
Keep it running, or export it in a form that opens without it. A year after the switch somebody will ask for an invoice from before the cut-off, and the answer should be a search rather than an excavation.
These are the bands we have seen on the migrations we have run. The quotation says which one a business falls into before anything is signed, rather than after the first invoice.
The five questions this page gets asked most
Answered here rather than on a call, because all five are reasonable and all five are easier to weigh in writing.
Is there a version of this page written by somebody independent?
No. Every word here is ours, which is exactly why each card opens with where the other product wins and why we refuse to quote anybody else's prices. Read it as what it is — a seller's account — and check it against the supplier themselves.
Why is a spreadsheet on a list of software products?
Because it is what most businesses of this size are actually using, and because for a one-person operation our own verdict is to keep it. A comparison page that pretended the real alternative was a competitor rather than the file already open would be answering a question nobody asked.
We already run one of these and only want part of it replaced.
That is common and it is supported. Modules are priced and switched on one at a time, so a firm can keep its books where they are and put only the production floor here. The quotation prices exactly the modules you pick.
How current is any of this?
The band above says what we test and how often we revisit it. Where a vendor has fixed something we describe as missing, tell us and the card gets corrected rather than waiting for the next review.
Will you talk to our existing supplier?
Yes, and it usually shortens the move. Export formats, the cut-off date and what the old system has to keep producing afterwards are all easier settled in one call between the two of us than in six emails through you.
Bring what you use now and compare it
The comparison that counts is the one run against your own numbers. Bring last month's figures, whatever you keep them in, and we will show you the same month in this and what it would have caught.