Six weeks, from the first call to going live.
An energy-renovation company, twelve people, in Wallonia. Here is what it lives with today, what happens week by week, and what its daily work looks like at the end.
This is not a client. It is a representative company, written as close as possible to what the trade actually looks like: renovation grants and their technical annexes, the reduced VAT wording, the works declaration, the electronic invoicing that became mandatory in January 2026. The real delivered projects are on the Projects page.
The company, before
Nothing unusual here: this is the normal state of a company that grew faster than its tools.
- One technical annex forgotten or one final invoice sent past the deadline, and the client loses their grant. The client remembers that for a long time.
- The reduced-VAT wording mishandled on an invoice: the company carries the risk as long as the document is not right.
- A works declaration forgotten the moment a subcontractor sets foot on a site.
- Since January 2026, invoices between companies must be sent as structured electronic documents. A spreadsheet cannot do that.
- Only one person knows how the spreadsheet is built. When they are on leave, the company slows down.
Week by week, and what gets delivered each time
These durations are those of a business tool of this scope. They stretch with the scope, never mid-project without you knowing.
Half a day in the office, half a day with a crew on site. I look at the quoting spreadsheet, the WhatsApp groups, the inbox, and I time what gets redone by hand. I propose nothing that day.
An audit note: where the time goes, and what can be fixed without writing a line of code.
We write down what we are building, and above all what we are not. Everyone's constraints go in: the rep wants to produce a quote during the visit, the installer wants three buttons usable with gloves on, admin wants the grant paperwork pre-filled, the accountant wants a compliant invoice.
A signed-off specification: scope, out of scope, business rules, screens listed.
The data model, with the client file at the centre: from enquiry to grant payment. The connections to what exists: supplier catalogues, invoicing tool, accountant. And what has to run on a phone with no signal, because a building site does not always have coverage.
The data diagram, the list of integrations, and every technical choice justified.
The price comes here, not before: I don't price what I haven't described yet. Split by batch, with what is optional and what can wait for a version 2 without holding up go-live.
A firm quote, batch by batch, with a committed go-live date.
The real screens, clickable, filled with their own data: their last three jobs, their real prices, their real client names. Not a template, not placeholder text. It is the first time they see their company inside a tool.
A prototype they open on their own phone, outside any meeting.
We replay a complete file in front of the team: the visit, the quote, the deposit, the supplier order, the installation, the invoice, the grant annex. The people who will use it correct things there, while fixing is still free.
A prioritised list of corrections, and the scope of version 1 locked.
Three identical rounds, one week each. The same URL throughout: they open it whenever they want to see where things stand. No black box, and nothing ships without going through the automated checks.
The loop in detail, belowA usable version, more complete each time, at the end of every week.
History imported from the spreadsheet, the tool goes live, team accounts created, a user manual, and half a day of hands-on onboarding with the crews. The tool isn't delivered when it's online: it's delivered when the first real job has gone through it.
The tool in production, their data inside, the team trained, the code in their own repository.
One week, one round, a version you can open.
This is what replaces the three-month tunnel. At no point do you wait until the end to discover what you bought.
I build the week's batch
A batch announced in advance, never a surprise.
The pipeline checks it
Types, tests, build: if it doesn't pass, it doesn't ship.
They test it for real
On a real file from that week, not on a test fixture.
Their feedback enters the next batch
Fixes and adjustments go round again.
The company, after
One place: the client file, from the first enquiry to the grant payment. Everything else follows from that.
- Retyping supplier prices for every quote
- Three WhatsApp groups acting as the company's memory
- The spreadsheet only one person can read
- Hunting for before-and-after photos, file by file
- Grant paperwork filled in by hand after the installation
- A quote built from the price library, sent during the visit, with the legal wording already in it
- Photos attached to the file straight from the phone, even with no signal on site
- Grant paperwork pre-filled from what the file already holds
- Alerts on deadlines: grant cut-off, unpaid deposit, declaration still to file
- One page showing the owner the state of every file, without calling anyone
And what doesn't change: the team works the way it always did. The tool bent to them, not the reverse.
Does your company look like this?
Describe your situation in two lines. The first call is about finding
where your time goes, not about selling you anything.