SME.Tools

Custom internal tools · fixed price

Tools that fit how your business actually runs.

One narrow, single-purpose tool to replace the spreadsheet, paper process or WhatsApp chain that’s slowing your business down. Built to your exact workflow, not the other way around.

01 / Tool
One narrow job, done properly
02 / Price
Agreed before we build
03 / Support
A human, on retainer
Signed in

Good morning, Ben

The Corner Kitchen · Owner

Your tools

One login. Every tool.

Owner / Staff

ORD-2841

New order placed

Checklist 5/5

Ready to open

Client ordering portalJob & site trackerShift rotaEquipment checkoutStock counterCompliance checklistQuote & approval portalClient invoicesCrew timesheetsVehicle logInspection records

The problem

Every morning, the orders arrive by WhatsApp, phone and paper.

A food supplier takes restaurant orders until 11am. The kitchen sends a voice note, the office writes it on a pad, the driver reads the pad in the van. The invoice is re-typed by hand. Somewhere, a case of tomatoes gets lost.

  • Orders scattered across voicemail, WhatsApp and handwritten tickets
  • The 10am cut-off is a scramble — every single day
  • Wrong lines get delivered because the list was written in a hurry
  • Re-keying orders into the invoicing spreadsheet eats an hour a day

6h

a week of re-keying, chasing and redelivering — per supplier, per depot. The portal below puts that list in the kitchen’s hand instead.

I want this for my business
Live demo

Greenfield Wholesale

Ordering for The Corner Kitchen

Cut-off today 6pm · Thu 6–8am

Mixed salad box

1kg · £3.40

2

Baby potatoes

5kg · £6.20

Vine tomatoes

6 × 500g · £4.10

A client ordering portal we’d build for a food supplier · mock data, resets on reload

Live demo

2

On site now

3

Crew out

84

Hours this wk

Kitchen refit — Phase 2

On site

15 Marine Parade · Ben + Sam · Thu 4pm

Shower gut & reline

On site

Cedar Court · Nadia · Thu 12pm

Decking rebuild

Booked

22 Willow Rd · Ash + Troy · Fri 3pm

Garden wall repoint

Quoted

9 The Orchard · · Quote out

On the ground
Ben Marine PdeSam Marine PdeNadia Cedar CtAsh WorkshopTroy Workshop

A job & site board we’d build for a trades firm · mock data, resets on reload

For trades

When the job list lives on WhatsApp, the boss becomes the database.

The crew messages updates to the office. The office transcribes them into a spreadsheet at 7pm. “Where are you?” is a daily text, and the mixer is always at the other site.

  • Crew updates the boss, the boss updates a spreadsheet — twice
  • Nobody knows which site has the tools until they're needed
  • Job status lives in a chat that scrolls off the screen

One board. Status, crew and tools in the same place — updated by the crew, from a phone, on site.

Build ours too

The everyday stuff

And the small tools that quietly run the week.

Not every bottleneck is a portal. Some are a rota, a stock count or a signed checklist. All of them are a few hours a week you can have back.

Four of the tools above, live — go ahead, tap around.

ROTA_02Shift rota
Staff
M
T
W
T
F
S
S

Alex M.

Bar

Sam K.

Kitchen

Jordan P.

Front

Full coverage on shift
Mock data · resets on reload
STOCK_03Stock counter

Craft ale (case)

In stock

14

Citrus sparkle (case)

Low stock

3

Lemonade (case)

Out of stock

0

Lager (keg)

In stock

9

2 need reordering4 items

Mock data · resets on reload
CHECKLIST_06Compliance checklist
2/5 checked40%

Daily opening check3 remaining

Mock data · resets on reload
INVOICE_01Client invoice

Harbour Joinery & Builds

Inv #1042

Bill to: The Old Mill Café

ItemQtyPriceTotal
£2,400.00
£680.00
£380.00
£1,080.00
Subtotal£4,540.00
VAT (20%)£908.00
Total due£5,448.00
Mock data · resets on reload

The catalogue

Tools we keep building — because they’re the same bottleneck everywhere.

Yours isn’t listed? It probably still qualifies. We pick one vertical at a time, so the pattern you see here gets reused and sharpened with every client.

Name your bottleneck

How it works

Three steps. Two numbers. No mystery invoices.

A fixed price to build the tool, a small retainer to keep it alive. That’s the whole commercial model.

The build

£2,500–£6,000

fixed, agreed up front

The retainer

From £99/mo

hosting, changes, support

  1. 01

    Find the bottleneck

    A short call to find the one process eating real hours each week — the spreadsheet with a thousand tabs, the rota on the fridge, the WhatsApp thread that never ends.

  2. 02

    We build it

    Fixed price, agreed up front. One narrow tool built to your exact workflow. You see it working within days, not quarters, and you own it.

  3. 03

    We host & support it

    A small monthly retainer covers hosting, small changes, and fast support from the person who built it. You text, we fix it. No call centres, no tickets.

Operating principles

AUTH

One login for everything

Staff sign in once and see an index dashboard of every tool we've built for you, gated by role — owner vs staff.

IDENTITY

We own the login

Most SMEs run Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace under their email but don't use it as an identity platform. So we run our own simple one — made for non-technical staff.

FOCUS

One vertical at a time

We focus on one industry at a time — trades, then hospitality — so each tool and UI pattern gets reused and refined. Better for us, cheaper and faster for you.

Who it's for

Small business owners who've had enough of making do.

If the tool you're missing is too specific for the big software companies, and too important to leave on a spreadsheet, you're exactly who we build for.

TradesHospitalityRetailProfessional services

Sounds like you

  • A critical process runs on paper, a spreadsheet, or a group chat
  • Off-the-shelf software is too big, too generic, or priced for enterprises
  • You have 5–50 employees and no IT department
  • The process matters to you every single day — and goes wrong regularly
  • You'd rather fix one thing properly than buy a system you'll never finish setting up

Probably not for you

  • You need an ERP or a multi-module platform
  • You're planning to sell your software to other businesses
  • You want us to integrate with a company identity provider you actively use for SSO

Pricing

Simple enough to explain to your accountant.

Two numbers. One to build it, one to keep it running. No user licences, no per-module upsells, no enterprise quote process.

The build

£2,500–£6,000

fixed price, one tool

Agreed up front, before we start. You know the cost of the tool before we build a line of code.

  • A short scoping call to find the real bottleneck
  • A clickable prototype you approve before we build
  • The tool itself, built to your exact workflow
  • It's yours — you own it outright
  • Training for whoever will use it most
  • A couple of weeks, not a couple of quarters
Most businesses

The retainer

From £99

per month

Keeps every tool we've built for you alive, secure, and actually useful. Cancellable, no lock-in.

  • Hosting, backups, and security upkeep
  • Small changes and tweaks — a rota column, a new status, a field — included
  • Fast support from the person who built it
  • One login, one dashboard for all your tools
  • Role-based access: owner vs staff
  • A quiet, reliable thing you never think about

Indicative pricing for a first conversation. Your exact quote depends on the tool — ask us.

FAQ

Straight answers to the questions we get most.

Something else on your mind? Ask us directly— a human replies.

Start the conversation

Tell us about the process that’s costing you hours every week.

No forms that disappear into a CRM. No sales team. Email us a sentence or two about the bottleneck and you’ll hear back from the person who’d actually build it.

hello@smetools.co.uk

Typically replies within one working day