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QB Systems

Approach

Priced before it starts, proven before it goes live.

Most engagements are finished inside a week. They still earn trust the way an audit does — by showing the work: every phase produces something you can read, check and keep.

01 · The phases

Five phases, and a clean exit after any of them.

Five phases sounds like a quarter of your life. In practice the first four run inside a week, and none of them depends on you signing for the next. Stop after the assessment and you keep the assessment; stop after the build and you keep the code, the documentation and the deployment pipeline.

  1. 01

    Assessment

    1 day

    We map what you run today — systems, spreadsheets, handoffs and the people covering the gaps. You get back a written assessment: where the manual work sits, what it costs in hours, and what is worth automating first. It stands on its own, whether or not we build anything.

    DeliverableSystem map, prioritised backlog, fixed-price proposal

  2. 02

    Design

    1 day

    Before code, we agree on the shape: data model, reconciliation rules, controls, who approves what. Finance and operations review it in plain language, not as a schema diagram. Settling a question here costs a conversation instead of a rebuild.

    DeliverableSolution design, control matrix, acceptance criteria

  3. 03

    Build

    3 to 4 days

    You see working software in your own environment daily, not at the end. Scope is agreed and small by design — if a piece of work cannot be demonstrated inside a week, we split it into pieces that can.

    DeliverableWorking software, test coverage, deployment pipeline

  4. 04

    Cutover

    1 day

    We replay a period you have already closed and check the new figures against the answer you already know. Nothing is switched off until they agree and your team has signed off on any difference.

    DeliverableReplayed-period tie-out, runbook, staff training

  5. 05

    Care

    Ongoing

    Monitoring, fixes and a standing improvement budget under a monthly agreement — or a clean handover with documentation and source code if you would rather run it in-house.

    DeliverableSupport agreement or documented handover

Assessment to cutover6 to 7 days

02 · Engagement shapes

Three ways to work with us.

Most clients start with a fixed-scope project and move to a retainer or a support agreement once the first system is live.

Fixed-scope project

A defined outcome — an integration, a billing engine, a reporting layer — quoted as a whole and delivered in increments. Most first engagements take this shape.

Fits whenYou know what needs to exist

Monthly retainer

A standing allocation of engineering time each month against a rolling backlog you set the priorities on. Work moves without a new contract every time.

Fits whenThe list is long and keeps changing

Support agreement

Monitoring, incident response and upkeep for systems we built or inherited, with defined response times and a named engineer who knows the codebase.

Fits whenIt is built and it has to keep running

03 · What we ask

Three things from you, and the schedule holds.

Projects of this kind rarely slip on engineering. They slip waiting for an answer, a credential or a decision — and on a schedule this short, a day lost waiting is a fifth of the build. We ask for very little, but we ask for it up front.

One decision-maker
Someone who can settle a question about how the business actually works the same day it is asked. Usually a controller, a finance lead or an owner. On a one-week schedule this is the thing that matters most.
Read access, early
Sandbox or read-only credentials to the systems in scope. Most surprises in financial integration live in the data, and we would rather meet them during design.
A real close to test against
We validate by replaying a period you have already closed. If the new system cannot reproduce a month you know the answer to, it is not ready.

Next step

Phase one is a conversation and a document.

Tell us which systems you run and where the manual work lives. We will come back with a scope, a price and a date — not a discovery call about a discovery call.