Meridian Freight
Quotes, jobs and a pipeline the office could actually see, replacing a shared spreadsheet that two people edited at once.
CRM and job pipeline · 2025Service · Direct
Custom CRM and intranet systems
Every business runs on a process that no product quite fits. At some point the workaround becomes more expensive than the software. This is what you build then.
01Fit
When a custom system is the right answer
- The process is genuinely how you compete, and bending it to fit a product would cost you the advantage.
- You are paying per seat for software where most people use one screen of it.
- The work already happens — in spreadsheets, email threads and a shared drive — and the cost is the time spent keeping them in step.
- Two systems that both hold customer records disagree, and someone reconciles them by hand.
- You need one number reported consistently and today it is calculated three different ways.
02Fit
When it is not
Said first, because it is the more useful answer more often.
If an off-the-shelf CRM does eighty per cent of what you need and the other twenty per cent is preference rather than process, buy the product. It will be cheaper, it will be supported by someone else, and it will be running next week.
We will tell you that on the first call if it is what we think, and we would rather do that than take on a build that a subscription would have solved.
03Scope
What these systems usually do
Customer and contact records
One record per customer, with the history attached — enquiries, quotes, orders, calls, documents — so nobody has to search their inbox to answer a question.
Quotes, jobs and pipelines
Whatever your work moves through: enquiry to quote to job to invoice, with the stages named the way your team names them and the transitions that are not allowed genuinely not allowed.
Documents, approvals and internal process
The intranet half. Forms that go to the right person, approvals with a record of who approved what and when, documents where people can find them, and onboarding checklists that do not live in a Word file.
Reporting
The numbers the business actually runs on, calculated once, in one place, and exportable. Defined during scope — a report nobody agreed the definition of is a report nobody trusts.
Permissions and audit
Roles that match your org chart, access that can be revoked when someone leaves, and a log of who changed what. This is the part that is hard to add later, so it is designed in from the start.
04Commercials
Priced per system, not per seat
A system we build for you is yours. Adding the fifteenth user does not cost more than the fourteenth, and the price does not change because you had a good year.
That is a structural difference from subscription software rather than a discount, and it is the reason a custom build can be the cheaper option over a few years even when it is the more expensive one in month one. We will not pretend it is cheaper on day one, because it is not.
05Engagement
How a system project runs
- 01
Process mapping. We sit with the people who do the work and write down what actually happens, including the parts that are not in the official process. This stage decides whether the project should happen at all.
- 02
Scope. What version one does, what it explicitly does not do, and what data comes across from where. In writing.
- 03
Build, in usable pieces. The first thing delivered is something a real team can use for a real part of the job. Not a demo. Feedback from actual use is worth more than feedback on a prototype.
- 04
Migrate and run in parallel. Existing data comes across and checked, and for a period the old way and the new way run side by side.
- 05
Handover and training. Documented, with a session for the people using it and a separate one for whoever administers it.
06Handover
Built to be handed on
Internal systems have a long life and outlast the people who commissioned them. So:
- The code is in a repository you own, with a README that tells a developer how to run it.
- The data is in a standard database you can export from at any time, in a schema that is documented.
- No component of it stops working because we stopped being involved.
- Written documentation of the process the system implements — which, in our experience, is the only written record of it that ends up existing.
07Proof
Systems we have built
Placeholder — invented projects, pending real client work
Trellis Group
Document approvals with a route, a deadline and a record of who signed what — the part the old intranet never had.
Intranet + approvals · 2025Kestrel Legal
Matter records, permissions by role, and reporting the partners run themselves instead of requesting.
Records + reporting · 202408FAQ
Questions we get asked
Can it integrate with the software we already use?
Usually. Accounting, email, calendars, EPOS, payment and shipping providers all have APIs. We check the specific ones at scope, because "has an API" and "has an API that does what you need" are different statements.
Who owns it?
You do. Code, data and documentation.
What happens if we need changes later?
They are quoted as work. Many clients hold a support agreement so there is an agreed route for small changes, but it is not a condition of the build.
How long before we can use it?
The aim is that a real team is using a real part of it within the first phase rather than at the end. How long that phase is depends entirely on the process, which is why the mapping stage comes first and is quoted separately.
Is this a website?
It runs in a browser and works on a phone. Beyond that, no — it is software, and it is scoped, built and tested like software.
Where does the data live?
In UK data centres, on infrastructure we manage, in an environment isolated to your system rather than shared with anyone else. Backups stay in the UK too. If your own policy requires it somewhere specific, say so at scope and we will build to that instead. See hosting.
09Next step
Start a project
Tell us what the process is and where it currently breaks.
Or email us at hello@felixwebsolutions.com.
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