Automating the manual job
The thing you do by hand every week because no product does it quite right. Copying figures between two systems, chasing the same people, rebuilding the same report. Usually the cheapest project and the fastest payback.
onetap
build
Bespoke software · project work
Software built around how you work.
Most business software makes you change your process to suit the software. This is the other way round. We build the tool your business already needs, whether that’s the automation, the internal system, the portal, or the thing you currently do by hand every Monday. Fixed price, defined outcome.
This is separate from our monthly website plans. Different work, different pricing, quoted per job.
Six shapes this usually takes.
Almost every project we’re asked about is one of these. If yours isn’t, it’s still worth a phone call. The interesting ones never fit a list.
Internal tools
A proper system for how your business runs, instead of six spreadsheets and a WhatsApp group. Jobs, stock, staff, scheduling, whatever the real bottleneck is.
Customer portals
Somewhere your customers log in to see their orders, their documents, their appointments or their account, rather than emailing you to ask.
Integrations
Making two systems that were never designed to talk to each other talk to each other. Your accounts package, your supplier’s feed, your till, your website.
Booking & payment systems
Where our own platform came from. If your booking or payment flow is unusual (multi-site, multi-staff, odd rules, deposits that work differently) off-the-shelf will fight you.
Rescuing something half-built
A project that stalled, a developer who disappeared, a system nobody understands any more. We’ll read it, tell you whether it’s worth saving, and then either finish it or replace it.
When this is the wrong answer.
Bespoke software is expensive next to a subscription, and it is the wrong call more often than it’s the right one. We’d rather tell you that on the phone than three weeks in.
Worth building
- The job costs you real hours every single week and no product does it well.
- Your process is unusual, and every tool you’ve tried has made you work around it.
- You’re paying per-seat or per-transaction fees that now cost more than owning the thing would.
- The data matters and it’s currently held together by spreadsheets and memory.
- You need two systems joined up and neither vendor is going to do it for you.
Take the shortcut instead
- You need a website with booking, quoting or invoicing. That’s a monthly plan, live in 48 hours.
- A £20-a-month product already does 90% of it. Use it, and spend the money elsewhere.
- The process itself is the problem. Software will just make a bad process faster.
- Nobody internally has time to answer questions during the build. It will stall, and you’ll have paid for it.
- You’re not sure what you want yet. Start with the small annoying job, not the grand plan.
The platform this business runs on.
The fairest way to judge whether we can build your system is to look at ours. Every OneTapWeb client site is powered by software we designed and wrote ourselves, and it handles other people’s money every day.
The OneTap client hub
Built in-house · in productionA multi-tenant platform behind every site we build. Each client gets their own account and runs their business from one login on a phone: services and availability, a booking engine with add-ons and deposits, quotes and job tracking, one-off and recurring invoices with automatic chasing, an online shop with stock and postage, and collection ordering for takeaways with alerts built so an order cannot go missing during a Friday rush.
Card payments run through Stripe into each client’s own account, with our platform fee split off per transaction and configured per plan. There is an admin side for provisioning clients, and an embeddable booking widget that drops into any site we build.
Nobody sold us this. We specified it, built it, deployed it and maintain it, which is roughly what we’d be doing for you.
See what it does for clients →
Want to see the booking engine working for real? It’s live on theglowhut.co.uk and ozzykebabvan.co.uk.
Phases, not one big leap.
You should never be more than a few weeks from seeing something that works, and you should always know what the next invoice looks like before it arrives.
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01
A call, free.
Half an hour on the phone describing the problem, not the solution. We’ll tell you roughly what it costs, whether it’s worth doing at all, and whether a £20 product would do it cheaper.
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02
Scoping, then a fixed quote.
For anything sizeable we do a paid discovery phase and hand you a written spec and a fixed price. It’s credited against the build if you go ahead, and it’s yours to take to another developer if you don’t.
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03
Built in stages.
Each phase has a price and an outcome. You get working software to use and criticise at the end of every one, rather than a demo at the end of the year.
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04
Handover, then support.
Code, documentation and a walkthrough. Then either you run it, or we keep it hosted, monitored, backed up and updated on a monthly retainer.
What projects cost.
Ranges rather than a single number, because the answer depends on what you need. Every job gets a fixed quote before any work starts. You will not get an hourly bill that grows.
Automation
One repeated manual job taken off your hands.
Custom tool
An internal system, portal or integration built round your process.
Product build
A multi-user application, delivered in phases.
Support retainer
Hosting, monitoring, backups, small changes, someone who answers.
Day rate available for ongoing work, ask on the call. Just need a website with booking or invoicing? That’s a monthly plan from £10, and it’s a much better use of your money.
The questions worth asking.
Including the ones you should ask any developer before handing over money.
How is this different from the monthly plans?
The plans are a product: a website plus a set of tools that already exist, for a fixed monthly fee. This is a project: something that doesn’t exist yet, built around how your business works, quoted per job. Different thing, different price, different conversation. If a plan covers what you need, take the plan. It’s cheaper and it’s live in 48 hours.
Why would I trust you with a four-figure build?
Fair question, and the honest answer is: look at what we run. The booking, quoting, invoicing and payment platform behind every OneTapWeb client site is ours, designed, built and maintained in-house, handling real money for real businesses every day. We didn’t buy it or white-label it. That’s the reference project, and you can see it working on any client site we’ve built.
Do I own what you build?
Yes. The code is yours, and you get it: repository access, documentation, and a handover walkthrough. We don’t build on a proprietary platform you can only run through us. If you want to take it to another developer in two years you can, and we’ll help you do it.
What do you build things with?
Web applications. They run in a browser on a phone, tablet or desktop with nothing to install. We stick to well-established, boring, well-documented tools rather than whatever is fashionable, because you need this working in five years and you need another developer to be able to pick it up. Hosting, backups and monitoring can sit with us or with you.
Do you build mobile apps?
We build web apps that work well on a phone and can be added to the home screen like an app. For the vast majority of business tools that is the right answer, and a fraction of the cost. If you need a native App Store or Play Store build, say so early and we’ll either scope it or tell you we’re not the right people. We’d rather lose the job than take it on badly.
How long does it take?
An automation is usually a few days to a fortnight. A custom tool is typically three to eight weeks. A larger product runs across months and we split it into phases so you have something working early rather than waiting for a big reveal at the end.
What if the scope changes halfway through?
It usually does, which is why we quote in phases rather than one lump. Each phase has a fixed price and a defined outcome. If something new comes up we price it as the next phase instead of running over. You always know what the next invoice looks like before it arrives.
What happens once it’s finished?
You can take it and run it yourself, or keep us on a support retainer for hosting, monitoring, backups and small changes. Most people take the retainer, because software that nobody maintains slowly stops working. It’s a separate monthly figure from the website plans and we’ll quote it with the build.
Can I start small?
Please do. The best first project is the single most annoying job in your week, the thing you do manually every Monday morning. It’s cheap to build, it pays back quickly, and it tells us both whether we work well together before anyone commits to anything bigger.
Describe the problem.
Not the solution. The problem. What takes too long, what keeps going wrong, what you currently do by hand. Half an hour on the phone is usually enough to tell you whether this is a fortnight or a quarter.
Call
07599 883 585
Mon–Fri, 9am–6pm. Best way to start. This kind of work is hard to scope over email.
WhatsApp
Message us
Send a screenshot of the spreadsheet you’re trying to kill. It says more than a paragraph.
Email
hello@onetapweb.co.uk
Answered the same working day. Eastleigh, Hampshire. We work UK-wide on project builds.