Fishbowl tracks a quantity, but your switchgear is tracked by serial

Most builds run $45,000 to $130,000. Serial tracking with project allocation starts near $45,000, while scanning, warranty history, and accounting integration run higher. Expect 3 to 6 months depending on integrations.

Fishbowl tracks quantities, but your units are individually serialised with their own history, warranty, and job allocation. It cannot tell you which specific transformer is reserved for which Hunter project, so that truth ends up in a spreadsheet. A custom system tracks every unit by serial.

By reserving a specific unit against a specific job and alerting anyone about to pull it for another. That prevents the on-site surprise where a wind-farm spare turns out to have been promised elsewhere. Quantity-based tools cannot do this because they do not track individual units.

Yes. Each serialised unit carries its full history, warranty, and service record for its whole life, which matters for gear serviced across mine shutdowns and renewables maintenance. That history stays on system instead of in a coordinator's memory.

Yes. We build scanning for movements across your Mayfield and Steel River operations so stock updates as it moves, rather than being re-keyed later. Scanning is what keeps serialised tracking accurate without adding a data-entry burden.

Yes. We integrate inventory with your accounting so stock valuation and GST are accurate, which matters for a manufacturer holding significant serialised assets. This removes the manual valuation reconciliation that spreadsheets force.

Yes. Units can be allocated directly from a project or job so the reservation is visible to everyone, not buried in a list. That link between inventory and project work is exactly where off-the-shelf tools leave a gap.

Plan on 3 to 6 months. We start with serial tracking and allocation, then add scanning, warranty, and integrations. We migrate and reconcile your existing stock and serial data before cutover so you trust the opening balances.

You do. You receive the source code and the database, so your serial register, allocations, and history are yours to keep. Confirm this before starting, especially with platform-based inventory tools that keep you on their runtime.

A deliberately boring one: PostgreSQL for the stock ledger, a mainstream backend such as Node.js, Python, or .NET, a web dashboard, and a mobile app or mobile web interface for scanning. The data model matters far more than the language; an append-only movement log with atomic stock updates prevents overselling in any stack. Reject anything exotic that only the original developer can maintain.

Choosing the lowest bid, paying more than 30-40% upfront instead of on milestones, skipping a written specification, and having no maintenance plan for after launch. The most expensive of the four in Digital Heroes rescue projects is the missing spec: without written acceptance criteria, done becomes an argument instead of a checklist, and every disagreement resolves in the vendor's favor. Fix those four and you have avoided most of the ways these projects fail.

Three to five for a typical focused build: a project lead, one or two engineers, a designer, and part-time QA, which is the standard shape across 2,000+ Digital Heroes projects. Larger platforms justify 6 to 10, but a ten-person team on a small first version usually signals bill padding rather than horsepower. What predicts success is whether a senior engineer is writing your code daily, not the headcount on the proposal.

The crossover usually shows up between 20 and 50 seats on premium tiers. Salesforce Enterprise lists at $165 per user per month, so 40 users cost about $79,000 a year in subscriptions, which is real money against a custom system you would own outright. Run the comparison over three years: if subscription spend beats the build cost plus 15-20% annual maintenance, custom wins on price before you even count workflow fit.

By keeping one authoritative count per SKU and recording every change as an atomic movement, so two orders can never both claim the last unit. Channel integrations sync through a queue with idempotency checks, meaning a webhook that fires twice does not subtract stock twice. Ask any vendor to demonstrate concurrent orders against a single unit of stock; naive builds and generic connectors both fail that test.

Start with a minimum viable product covering the single most painful workflow, usually receiving, movements, and scanning for one location, then extend in phases. In Digital Heroes delivery experience, phased builds put a working system on the warehouse floor in 8 to 12 weeks and let real feedback shape phase two, while big-bang builds routinely ship features nobody uses. Phasing also spreads the budget across quarters instead of demanding it all up front.

Usually yes once you pass the three-year mark. Cin7 Omni plans start around $999 per month on its published pricing, roughly $36,000 over three years before add-ons, which overlaps the cost of a full custom build you then own outright with no per-user fees. If you are on a lower Cin7 tier and your subscription runs below roughly $500 per month, staying put normally makes more financial sense than building.

Digital Heroes builds custom inventory management software systems for operators who have outgrown the off-the-shelf tools in their category. The work is delivered remotely: our engineers work from Delhi and Lucknow, leadership is in New York, and some team members live in London and Sydney and work remotely from there. We have no office in Newcastle. You can chat with the team directly, and every form gets an email reply within 24 hours.