Solve With Software

Business system modernisation & takeover · UK

Still running your business on a system nobody dares touch?

We take over the business systems other people built, whether that's a VB6 app from 2003 or a web app from 2020, and move them forward: modernised, extended, AI-enabled.

Without losing your data. Without stopping your business. Without a leap of faith.

Book a free consultation

Free · 1 hour · no obligation

or call Marc directly: 01206-848428

The same screen, before and after. Drag the divider. Illustrative, not a client system.
  • 70+ years combined experience building business systems
  • Essex-based, working UK-wide

How it works

  1. Book a free consultation

    An hour on your system, free. No obligation, no hard sell.

  2. We perform an in-depth analysis of your system

    Then hand you a report with plan and price options.

  3. You decide with facts

    With us, with someone else, or not yet.

Does any of this sound familiar?

If your system is old…

  • The person who built it retired, went bust, or won't answer the phone
  • It only runs on one old PC that everyone's afraid to switch off
  • Your IT company can't support it any more, or it broke when you moved to Windows 11
  • You failed (or can't apply for) Cyber Essentials because of it

If it's newer, but stuck…

  • The agency or freelancer who built it in 2019–2021 has moved on, and nobody else will touch it
  • You can see exactly what AI could do for your business, but your current system can't do it
  • Every small change breaks two other things
  • New staff take months to learn it, and there's no manual

Old or new, the same thing is true: your system holds years of customers, orders and history. That data is one of the most valuable things your business owns, and it's only as safe as the software it lives in.

If you ticked even one, you're exactly who we work with.

We speak fluent legacy, old and new.

The old guard

  • Visual Basic 6
  • Microsoft Access
  • Delphi
  • FoxPro
  • Classic ASP
  • WinForms
  • SQL Server 2000–2016
  • Crystal Reports
  • Sage integrations
  • “the spreadsheet that runs everything”

The new legacy

  • React
  • Angular
  • Node
  • PHP & Laravel
  • .NET Core
  • Bubble
  • Power Apps
  • “the agency that stopped replying”

Built in 2003 or 2020, stuck is stuck. If your business can't move it forward, we take it over and get it moving again.

The clock is genuinely running.

None of this is scaremongering. The dates are Microsoft's and BT's, published. If one applies to you, the question isn't whether to act. It's whether you act on your timetable, or in a crisis.

July 2026passed

SQL Server 2016: security updates ended July 2026 for most licence holders. If your system runs on it, you're unpatched now.

January 2027

Windows Server 2016: support ends January 2027.

January 2027

The UK phone network switch-off: January 2027 kills anything that dials, faxes or alerts over an analogue line.

Each renewal

Cyber Essentials: unsupported software must be removed or isolated to pass. More of your customers demand certification every year.

Every quarter

AI: systems that read paperwork, draft quotes and answer questions from your data are becoming normal. If yours can't be extended to do that, the gap compounds every quarter.

Find out which of these applies to you, before it decides for you.

Book a free consultation

Free · 1 hour · no obligation

Start with an assessment, not a contract.

Before anyone talks about a rewrite, we perform an in-depth analysis of your current system and give you a written report:

  • What your system actually does (often nobody remembers all of it)
  • Where the real risks are, which are urgent and which are theoretical
  • Where AI would pay back in your business, and where it would be money on hype
  • Costed options: stabilise and extend what you have, modernise it in stages, or replace it, with a price for each

The assessment, sized to your system

From £395+ VAT

Sized on the free consultation, with an exact price before you commit. The analysis takes a few days.

Take it to us, another developer, or nobody. Most clients use it to put real numbers in front of the board.

And if the report tells you nothing you didn't already know, we'll refund it.

Book a free consultation

No big bang. No leap of faith.

We don't switch off your old system on a Friday and pray on Monday. We modernise in stages: the new system grows alongside the old one, sharing the same data, screen by screen. Your team keeps working throughout. At every stage you have working software you've already paid for. If you stopped tomorrow, you'd keep everything.

Your data stays yours

Migrated, checked and reconciled, with the old system kept as a fallback until you say so.

Your code stays yours

Everything lives in your own accounts from day one.

You pay in stages

Each payment tied to something you can see working.

And sometimes the answer isn't a rewrite at all. If your system is fundamentally sound, we'll take it over, stabilise it, and build what's missing, AI features included. The assessment tells you which you are.

You work with the person who writes the code.

Your project is led by one dedicated, highly experienced full stack developer and solution architect, from the first call to the last release. When the job needs a team, we bring one in. Your point of contact never changes. No account managers, no handoffs, no offshore team you've never met.

Here's what that experience means for your project:

  • Solution and software architecture experience means your system gets designed before it gets built. Structure first, code second, so you're not paying to unpick decisions later
  • Government, corporate, mid-size and SME work each teach different lessons. You get all of them: public-sector rigour, corporate scale, and the pragmatism a smaller business runs on
  • A full stack lead means one person understands the whole system, from the database to the screen your team uses. Nothing falls into the gaps between specialists
  • Hundreds of delivered projects mean the expensive mistakes are familiar. You hear about them before they cost you anything
  • Experience across every size of organisation means advice sized to yours: no enterprise process forced on a five-person office, no corner-cutting on the things that matter

And a bigger build gets a bigger team. A £100,000 system needs more than one developer, so we scale the team, with over 70 years of combined experience to draw on. The developer leading your project sets the architecture and the standards, everyone we bring in works to them, and that same person stays your primary contact to the end.

Marc Allington

Marc Allington

Founder, Solve With Software

Started Solve With Software in 2012 and still writes the code. The person you speak to on the first call is the person who leads the work.

Meet the developer who'd lead the work. It starts with a free consultation.

Book a free consultation
combined experience building business systems
70+ years

Questions

What people ask before they book.

What does this actually cost?

It depends on your system, but it doesn't take us long to get a price and a plan to you. We perform an in-depth analysis of your system, then hand you a written report with costed options and a fixed price for each. Real numbers, days after we start.

Age isn't the problem. Being stuck is. If the people who built it are gone and your business can't move it forward, it doesn't matter whether it's VB6 or React. Taking over a sound modern system is often faster and cheaper than you'd expect.

Usually, yes, and usually without a rewrite. The wins that pay for themselves are rarely glamorous: reading invoices and orders straight into your system, drafting quotes and replies, answering questions from your own data. We'll tell you which apply to you, and which would be money on hype.

No. Data migration is planned, tested and reconciled before anything goes live, and the old system stays available as a fallback until you're confident.

No. Some clients should, some shouldn't. The assessment tells you which you are.

Sometimes that's the right answer. If it is, we'll tell you and quote for that instead.

Yes. We carry professional indemnity, public and products liability, and cyber and data insurance. If your due diligence needs the certificates, ask and we'll send them.

Latest insights

Stop being the only person who worries about it.

One free consultation. A right-sized assessment. A written report you keep either way.

Book a free consultation

or call Marc directly: 01206-848428