Bespoke inventory management software for trades and service businesses.
Bespoke inventory management software tracks stock the way it really moves through your business: from supplier to yard, van, venue or site, and onto the job that used it. We build custom inventory systems that reserve materials when a quote is accepted, cost every job properly, and tell you what to reorder before anyone runs short.
Fixed quote before we start. One-off build fee, then ongoing management from go-live.
Stock tracked the way it actually moves.
Inventory management software records what stock you hold, where it is, what it cost and when to buy more. Most stock control systems assume a warehouse: goods arrive, sit on a shelf and leave in a box. That suits a shop or a wholesaler. It suits a business that cuts cable from a reel in a van, or moves stock between three venues on a Friday night, much less well.
A bespoke stock management system starts from your own flow: how you buy, where materials wait, who takes them, which job or site uses them and what comes back. Because it follows that flow, the numbers on screen match what is in the van, and every job carries its real material cost.
Signs you have outgrown your stock spreadsheet or app.
Cin7, Unleashed, inFlow, Katana and Xero’s own inventory serve many businesses well. These are the signs yours needs inventory software shaped to how stock moves through it.
Stock that lives in vans
Half your materials sit in vans and on sites, not on a shelf. A warehouse system only knows what came in the door, so the real count is a guess until someone checks.
Materials that never reach the job cost
Cable, pipe, timber, chemicals and consumables go out to jobs without anyone recording which job used them, so every job looks more profitable than it was.
Units the software cannot handle
You buy by the drum, the pallet or the 50 metre reel and use by the metre, the litre or the piece. The stock app counts whole boxes and the numbers drift.
A spreadsheet next to the stock app
The tool holds a product list, and the real tracking of what is reserved, borrowed or out on hire lives in a spreadsheet one person maintains.
Shortages found on site
Engineers or staff arrive to find the part or the stock is not there, because nothing reserved it when the customer said yes.
Paying for retail features you never use
Multi-channel selling, marketplaces and shipping labels are the reason the subscription costs what it does, and you need none of them.
What goes into bespoke inventory management software.
Most builds combine several of these parts. Discovery decides which ones you need first, and management lets you add the rest as the business grows.
Same idea, four very different stock rooms.
These are illustrative examples, not client projects. They show how the same parts take a different shape in each kind of business.
An electrical or plumbing contractor
Each engineer’s van holds a standard kit. The system shows what each van should carry, what it used on yesterday’s jobs and what needs restocking from the store before the morning run. Materials used on a job flow onto the job cost and the invoice.
A landscaping or groundworks company
Bulk materials sit in the yard by the tonne and the pallet. Accepted quotes reserve the paving, sub-base and timber for each job, and the yard team sees a loading list per day. Leftovers come back as stock, not waste.
A hospitality group with several venues
Each venue has par levels for drinks and consumables. Managers count on a phone at close, transfers between venues keep the books straight, and the owner sees wastage and stock value by site.
A commercial cleaning company
Chemicals, paper goods and equipment go out to client sites. Each site has its own usage, so the business can see which contracts consume more than the pricing allowed and restock sites before cleaners run short.
Connected to the tools you already pay for.
Stock touches buying, quoting, jobs and accounts. We connect the system to the tools that handle each of those, and we never rebuild accounting. We check what each tool’s API exposes during discovery.
Stock that knows what you have sold.
The most useful inventory software for a trade or service business is the one connected to its quotes. When the price list in your quoting tool and the materials in stock share one record, a supplier price rise reaches the next quote straight away, and an accepted quote reserves exactly what the job needs.
At the other end, materials booked to a job feed its true cost. Put that next to the quoted price and you can see which kinds of work make money once materials are counted properly, and which ones only look profitable.
Those figures can sit on a bespoke reporting dashboard alongside enquiries, win rate and cash owed, so the owner sees the whole picture on one screen.
Bringing your stock records with you.
We move your products, suppliers and locations across as part of go-live, test the import with you, and switch over on a date that suits the business.
From spreadsheets
We turn product lists, location tabs and colour codes into proper records, merge duplicates, and agree units and locations with you before anything moves.
From Cin7, Unleashed or inFlow
We export products, suppliers, locations and stock levels, map them to the new structure, and check the totals match before switch-over.
An opening stocktake
We plan a count by location for go-live day, so the new system starts from numbers everyone trusts rather than old balances.
From the yard and the vans to a system your team trusts.
An inventory build follows the same five stages as all our bespoke software: discovery, a written scope with a fixed quote, a build in stages, go-live, then ongoing management.
For stock, discovery follows the materials. We trace a few recent jobs from supplier order to final invoice over video calls and screen-shares, note every place stock waits or changes hands, and list the units, locations and rules your team already uses without writing them down.
The first milestone is usually locations, stock levels and phone counts, because accurate numbers come before everything else. Reservations from quotes, purchase orders and job costing follow, each one in use before the next begins.
A fixed quote, and your data stays yours.
Every bespoke inventory system has a one-off build fee, fixed in a written quote after discovery, plus monthly management from go-live covering hosting, monitoring, updates, fixes and small improvements. Adding a van, a venue or a user does not add a licence fee. The full pricing model sits on our bespoke software page.
A licence to use it
Scalepoint keeps the code and you hold a licence to use it, with the option to buy the code out later.
The code becomes yours
Once you pay the build in full, you own the code.
Your data is always yours
Your stock, supplier and job records belong to your business, and you can export them at any time.
Common questions about bespoke inventory software
How much does bespoke inventory management software cost?
It depends on scope, so we quote after discovery rather than publish a price. Tracking stock across a store and a few vans costs less than a system with purchase orders, job costing, supplier imports and several integrations. Your written quote fixes the build fee before you commit and sets out the monthly management fee in the same document.
Should we use Cin7 or Unleashed instead?
If you buy finished products and resell them, often yes. Cin7, Unleashed and similar tools, connected to Xero, handle standard product stock well. Bespoke inventory software earns its place when stock moves through vans, sites, venues or jobs, gets cut or split, or needs to link to quotes and job costs in ways those tools do not follow.
Does it handle VAT and stock accounting?
Your accounts software does. We never rebuild accounting; the inventory system sends purchase bills and stock values to Xero or QuickBooks, which remain the place for VAT, Making Tax Digital and your year-end figures.
Can staff use it on their phones?
Yes. We build it to run in a browser on a phone, tablet or desktop. Staff scan barcodes or QR codes with the phone camera, so you do not need dedicated scanners unless you want them.
Who owns the software and the stock data?
Your stock and supplier data is always yours, and you can export it at any time. Code ownership is agreed per project in writing: by default Scalepoint keeps the code and you hold a licence with the option to buy it out, or the code becomes yours once you pay the build in full.
What happens after go-live?
Ongoing management starts from go-live with every build: hosting, monitoring, updates, fixes and small improvements. When you add a venue, a van or a new supplier, the system grows with you.
Walk us through one job’s materials.
Show us how stock gets from your supplier to a finished job today, and we will show you what an inventory system built around that route would look like.
More on bespoke software.
Every kind of software we build, and how a project runs
Learn more →Material cost per job next to the rest of your numbers
Learn more →When the spreadsheet that runs the business needs replacing
Learn more →From enquiry to quote to job, in one record
Learn more →Quotes that reserve the stock they need
Learn more →Jobs that book the materials they use
Learn more →