Know before you decide.
High-level concept or specification, inventory system or ERP, in-house or in the cloud: here we explain the questions that come up before a software decision. Plain, practical and with examples from everyday business.
The key questions, plainly explained
Guides
Each guide answers a question that comes up again and again in our first conversations.
Planning and commissioning
Custom or off-the-shelf software? A guide to deciding
Most businesses need both: off-the-shelf software for what everyone does the same way, and their own software for what sets them apart. The real question is where to draw the line.
ReadHigh-level and detailed concept: what goes in them and why you need both
Before software is built, two things are needed: a picture of the whole and a precise plan for the first step. That is what the high-level concept and the detailed concept are for.
ReadRequirements or functional specification? What you actually need
The requirements specification says what you need. The functional specification says how it will be built. Both have their place - but a thick document before the first step is rarely the best route.
ReadDocumenting business processes: so that your staff recognise them
Software always maps a workflow. If the workflow lives only in people's heads, what gets built is what the vendor understood. Good process documentation describes the business as it works today - in your staff's own words, with the real documents attached.
ReadHow a software estimate is made
An estimate is not a figure someone names by gut feeling. It grows out of what is known about the workflow - and it is exactly as reliable as that basis allows.
ReadChoosing a software partner: questions for the first conversation
The first conversation with a software vendor is worth more if you ask the questions. Not to test the vendor, but to see what working together will look like once it gets serious - after launch, at the first fault, when your business changes.
ReadWho owns your software? Source code, usage rights and what to ask
You had software built and you paid for it - do you own it? Not necessarily. What you own is what the contract says, and what it leaves out only becomes apparent once the vendor stops answering. Better to ask the questions beforehand.
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Your own software
Excel as a database: when the spreadsheet is no longer enough
Almost every business has one: the Excel sheet in which orders, customers or appointments are maintained. It is quick to build and anyone can use it. At some point five people are working in it - and the spreadsheet has become a system Excel was never meant to be.
ReadA customer portal: what it does for you and what it takes
Checking orders, downloading delivery notes, reporting a complaint: a customer portal spares your office the calls that always ask the same question. Whether it pays off depends less on the technology than on the data behind it.
ReadCapturing orders on a phone: field sales, installation, service
The fitter fills in the job sheet on a clipboard, the customer signs, the sheet reaches the office later and is typed up. Mobile capture removes that detour. What it has to be able to do - and when a standard app is enough.
ReadBarcodes and scanners in the warehouse: what changes
Scanning instead of searching means fewer shortages and knowing what sits where. The scanner is the smallest part of it. What matters are labels, named storage locations and master data that is right - and an inventory system that understands scanning.
ReadRoles and permissions: who may see and change what
Sales sees prices, the warehouse sees stock, accounts sees payments - and the external partner only their own projects. In every piece of business software, permissions are what gets planned last and needed first. An overview of how to set them up sensibly.
ReadLow-code: what the toolkits can do and where they stop
Forms, approvals, small workflows: with toolkits such as Power Apps, Zapier or Ninox, businesses now build for themselves what once needed a programmer. It works well - up to a limit that is worth knowing before you reach it.
ReadCloud or your own server: where should the software run?
New software needs a place to run: the server in your own building, a German hosting provider’s data centre or the cloud of a large provider. None of the three is always right - the answer hangs on five questions you should settle before launch.
ReadSoftware after launch: operation, maintenance and further development
Launch does not finish the software; it puts it to work. Updates, security fixes, backups and requests from the business arrive regularly from now on. Who looks after them should be settled before launch - otherwise the next legacy system is in the making.
ReadAcceptance and test environment: how to check new software before everyone works with it
The developer says the software is finished. Before everyone works with it, your staff should try it out with real transactions from the business - in a test environment where nothing can go wrong. That is acceptance, and it is less of a formality than it sounds.
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ERP and interfaces
Inventory management or ERP: what is the difference?
An inventory management system looks after the goods, an ERP after the whole company. In practice the line is blurred - and the right question is rarely which system to buy, but which workflow is stuck today.
ReadWhat is an interface? Plainly explained, with EDI
An interface lets two programs exchange data without anyone retyping it. How that works, which kinds there are and what EDI has to do with it.
ReadDouble data entry: where it comes from and how to make it disappear
An order arrives by email, is typed into the ERP, ends up as a delivery note in Excel and finally once more in the accounts. Double entry rarely gets noticed, because everyone sees only their own part of the journey. How to find the points and what helps.
ReadMaster data: why a customer should exist only once
The same customer sits in the ERP, in the accounts and in the sales team's Excel list - with three spellings and two addresses. Master data is the basis of every integration and every report. What a leading system is and who looks after the data.
ReadConnecting your online shop and ERP: stock, orders, shipping
Items and prices into the shop, orders and payments back into the ERP, stock and shipping status in both directions. As long as someone does that by hand, one side is always lagging behind. What an integration has to deliver and where it usually gets stuck.
ReadHanding documents to DATEV: bookkeeping without retyping
The invoice is created in the ERP, and the tax adviser enters it into DATEV once more. Yet many programs can already produce what the practice needs. What document images and posting batches are, what goes from where to the tax adviser, and what to agree with them first.
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AI in the business
Built it yourself with AI: what is missing before go-live
With tools such as Lovable, Bolt or Cursor, your own application comes together quickly today - often built by someone in-house who knows the problem best. Before real data goes in, a few things are usually still missing.
ReadRunning AI in-house: what you need
Not every AI has to run in the cloud. Openly available models can run on your own hardware - and can then reach data that should never leave the building. What you need for that.
ReadWhat is an MCP Server? How AI reaches your programs
An AI assistant can talk about a great deal, but nothing about your business as long as it does not know your programs. An MCP Server is the standardised route through which it can query your ERP - “Which orders are overdue?” - with the same permissions as the employee who is asking.
ReadHow AI reads your documents: search and answers from your own files
An AI assistant that knows your contracts, quotes and minutes answers in one sentence and names the document it took the answer from. How that works in the background is less mysterious than it sounds - and once you understand it, you also see the limits.
ReadChoosing an AI pilot project: how to recognise a good place to start
“We should do something with AI.” The sentence is heard in many businesses, and then it often goes quiet - not for lack of ideas, but because there are too many. The first attempt decides whether there is a second, so the place to start needs choosing carefully.
ReadWhat AI cannot do for your business: limits worth knowing beforehand
Anyone trying ChatGPT, Claude or Microsoft Copilot for the first time is usually impressed - the text flows and the answer sounds like someone who knows. That is exactly the difficulty: a language model sounds equally sure whether it is right or not.
ReadShadow IT and shadow AI: when staff help themselves
WhatsApp groups for jobs, a spreadsheet only one colleague maintains, a personal ChatGPT account with customer data in it: shadow IT exists in almost every business. It shows where staff lack a tool - a signal, not an offence.
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Replacing old systems
Replacing an Access database without stopping the business
In many businesses an important workflow depends on an Access database someone built years ago. Switching it off is not an option, carrying on gets riskier. There is a way in between.
ReadSigns that your system is at its end
Many businesses run software that has been in use for a long time - and do well with it. Old on its own is no reason to switch. But there are signs that a system is no longer merely old but at its end.
ReadCut-over date or step by step: two ways to replace a system
Anyone replacing a system has to settle one fundamental question early: switch everything on a single cut-over date, or move area by area? Both routes have their place. Which one fits depends on the system, the business and the way back.
ReadMoving old data to a new system: what comes along and what does not
When switching to a new system, most businesses want to take everything with them. That is rarely wise. What is migrated should be correct, needed and fit the new system - the rest stays readable in an archive.
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