The internal tool your team currently runs as a spreadsheet
Almost every business has one spreadsheet that quietly became critical. It works, one person maintains it, and everyone is slightly afraid of it. Rebuilding it as a real internal tool is usually a small, well-defined build, and it is often the best first item to point a seat at because the result is visible within days.
Why the spreadsheet is a warning sign
A load-bearing spreadsheet means the business has a process the software does not support. That is useful information. The spreadsheet is a specification that someone already wrote and validated in production, for free.
It is also a risk. It has no permissions worth the name, no audit trail, no validation, and a single person who understands it.
Dashboards are only as good as what is underneath
A dashboard built on a manual export is a picture of a moment. A dashboard built on a real data layer is a view of the business. The second one takes longer to build and is the only one worth having.
On one engagement that meant a business intelligence layer on Postgres, so reporting read from a database instead of a rebuilt spreadsheet.
What this looks like as a build
- Internal tools that replace a load-bearing spreadsheet, with permissions and validation
- Operational and revenue dashboards built on a real data layer
- Data pipelines feeding reporting, rather than manual exports
- Shared definitions, so two reports of the same number agree
This is not a separate service with its own price
There is one thing to buy here: a build seat, from $7,500 per month. This page describes one of the things people point a seat at. You set the order, and the seat works one item at a time until each is done.
Questions about this kind of work
- Can you build on top of the data we already have?
- Usually yes. Most of these builds start by getting your existing data into one place that can be queried, which is a useful outcome on its own even before anything is displayed.
- Is this a good first item for a new seat?
- Often, yes. It is well defined, it is visible quickly, and it tells us both a lot about how your data is really shaped before committing to something larger.
Start with a call, not a contract
Thirty minutes. You describe what broke, what it is costing you, and what you have already tried. I tell you whether a seat is the right answer, and I will tell you when it is not.
Or reach me directly: +1 385-208-1781 scott@aetenum.com
If you are comparing quotes on price, I am not your cheapest option and I will not pretend otherwise.