Replacing 7 spreadsheets with one operating system for a property firm
A property firm running 440 units across Manchester and Birmingham was operating from seven interconnected spreadsheets. We replaced them with a single operating system covering maintenance, tenancy, financials, and supplier management — built in 11 weeks, owned outright.
- Client
- UK property management group (name withheld)
- Size
- 440 units under management, 22 employees
- Service
- Custom Software
- Duration
- 11 weeks build, ongoing engineering retainer
The challenge
Where they were.
The operations director was spending Sunday evenings reconciling spreadsheets so Monday meetings could run. Two members of staff were responsible for 'keeping the spreadsheets working'. Every new property added complexity. A competitor was using a £40k/year SaaS — they wanted something better that they owned.
The approach
How we worked.
Scope & shape
Two weeks of architecture work. Sat with every team — maintenance, tenancy, finance, supplier ops — to map their actual workflow. Designed the data model around the property unit, not the team boundary.
MVP build
Seven weeks of focused sprints. Weekly demos on a staging URL. Built the operating dashboards first, then the supplier portal, then the tenant-facing maintenance request flow.
Migration + launch
Migrated three years of historical data from the spreadsheets — including reconciling discrepancies. Trained the team across two half-days. Live with real tenants in week 11.
Engineering retainer
Ongoing 0.5-engineer retainer. New features ship every two weeks. The team finally has time to think strategically instead of pushing data around.
The outcomes
What changed.
- 60%
- Reduction in operational admin time
- 1
- Operating system replacing 7 spreadsheets
- 100%
- IP ownership, hosted on their domain
- £42k
- Annual SaaS spend avoided
“We went from drowning in spreadsheets to running the business properly. The team is calmer, the numbers are tighter, and we control our own roadmap.”
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