Quoting, stock and project software for an industrial fabrication company

The company quotes and delivers piping and fabrication projects. A quote is built from many parts, priced from supplier costs, revised for the same customer, turned into a picking slip when won, scheduled, and finally invoiced. They wanted that whole chain in one system, running on infrastructure they control.

• Clients, contacts and quote history in one place, with sequential quote numbers, revisions for the same customer and copying a quote to another customer.
• Quotes built from standard sub-panels (for example labour and travel, a filling line, a bypass line), keyboard-driven line entry, supplier prices with a flag when a price is out of date, and a markup per item.
• Quotes published as Word or Excel documents with VAT added on the document, then marked won or lost; a won quote produces a picking slip and a handover pack.
• Stock and reservations, requisitions and purchase orders, a crew schedule, and a simple mobile view for technicians in the field.
• Roles and permissions, so each person sees and does only what their job needs, with sign-in protections and a change history.

A security review first. We reviewed the application, tightened permissions on sensitive actions and updated dependencies with known weaknesses.

Packaged for the client's own Windows server. One installer sets up the database, the application and an encrypted web front end as Windows services, opens the firewall for the company network only, schedules nightly backups and an hourly health check, and creates the first administrator.

A signed licence file. Access is controlled by a licence file. If one ever lapses the software locks, but an administrator can still export all the company's data, so nothing is ever held hostage.

Tested, then installed. Over 3,000 automated tests passed before the release was built. The install itself took about ten minutes, remotely, with the client's IT provider on the phone. Two things on the server differed from what we had been told (the web ports were already in use, and a folder permission was stricter than expected). We found both on the day, fixed them, and wrote them into the install notes.

• An administrator handover: how to sign in, set up staff and roles, what the licence does, how backups work, and who to call.
• A staff user guide covering a quote from first draft to completed project.
• A separate handover for the company's IT provider, listing the eight things they own (certificate, backups off the server, firewall range, antivirus, and so on).
• Nightly backups, a health check, and a documented way to restore.