Custom software in Terrassa: what to do with the program nobody touches

When someone calls us about custom software in Terrassa, half the time it is not to build something new. It is because there is already a bespoke program, it was written by someone who is long gone, and the whole company depends on it.

Terrassa: companies with years behind them and programs with more

The town has 16,270 general-scheme registrations in workplaces of fifty to two hundred and fifty workers and 101,039 people in work. The figures come from the Idescat municipal profile.

Another number explains where these programs come from: the food, textile, timber, printing and chemicals branch produces 378 million euros of added value a year, on top of 1,155 self-employed people registered in industry. These are long-standing companies, many of them second or third generation.

Companies like that have been computerised for decades. In the nineties somebody built them a program around their way of working, and that program is still there: it was a good decision then and today it is the weakest point in the building.

Signs that the inherited program has become a risk

It does not have to break to be a problem. Two out of these four are enough to sit down and look at it:

Nobody knows what it does inside

Whoever wrote it retired, moved on or passed away. There is no documentation, no comments in the code, and often not even the source code: just the installed program.

It only runs on one specific computer

The one in the corner, on an operating system that stopped getting updates years ago, that nobody switches off «just in case». If the power supply goes, the company stops.

Any change takes weeks, or simply cannot be done

Changing a VAT rate, adding a field or pulling a new report turns into a project. And since it cannot be done, it ends up being done outside: parallel spreadsheets nobody reconciles.

The data can only be seen on screen

It is in there, but it will not come out. Not to a spreadsheet, not to a decent PDF, not to another program. That is more than an annoyance: Spain's Commercial Code requires businesses to keep their books and paperwork for six years, and if a customer exercises their right of access you have to be able to hand over what is theirs. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice, but the practical conclusion is the same: the data has to be able to come out.

The first step is not programming: it is getting the data back

Before deciding anything we always do the same, and it usually takes the first week:

1. Find where the information lives. There is nearly always a database underneath, even if the program never shows it. With that, everything can be pulled out.
2. Take a full copy and store it away from that computer. Even if nothing else ever happens, this alone halves the risk.
3. Check that what comes out matches what the screen shows. Some old programs calculate things on the fly and never store them.
4. List what it actually does, screen by screen, with whoever uses it daily. Half the options have not been touched in years.

That list is what later stops you rebuilding features nobody uses any more.

Three ways out when the custom software already exists

• Wrap it. Leave the program as it is and build what is missing around it: a web page for the sales team to consult, a bridge so the information reaches accounts, a panel for the reports. It is the cheapest and the quickest to show.
• Rewrite it in pieces. Replace it module by module, starting with the one that hurts most, while the old one keeps running everything else.
• Replace it with off-the-shelf software. If what it does is not what makes you different — invoicing, accounts, payroll — buying usually wins. We cover when each option pays off in when custom software pays off.

Why we almost never rewrite it in one go

The full rewrite is the option people ask for most and the one that goes worst. The old program has spent twenty years accumulating odd rules nobody remembers but the company needs: that customer who is invoiced differently, that item discounted by hand, that report that only adds up if it is run in that order.

Rewriting from scratch, those rules surface one at a time and at the worst moment. In pieces, each new part lives alongside the old one and gets compared: if the new report matches the usual one for a month, the old one gets switched off. If it does not, it gets fixed without anyone downing tools.

What is worth building bespoke in a Terrassa company

When building is the answer, it is nearly always the same thing: the bridge between the workshop and the office, order tracking for a large customer, the report that today is produced by hand. What happens to paper between the unit and the office we cover in full in process automation in Terrassa.

And what is not: accounting, payroll and standard invoicing. That already exists, updates itself when the law changes, and building it bespoke is paying to own a problem.

What to put in writing this time

If the inherited program teaches anything, it is what was missing from the original order. The new contract has to say:

• That the code is yours, with repository access from day one. Same logic as who owns your domain: what you pay for is yours.
• Where the data lives and how to get it out without depending on anyone.
• Minimum documentation: how to install it, how to restore it and what each part does.
• Backups that have been tested, not merely scheduled. A backup nobody has ever restored is not a backup.

How long it takes and what we need from you

Getting the data to safety and building the first bridge usually takes three to six weeks. From your side we need three things: someone who uses the program daily and can explain why it is done that way, access — to the computer, the database and whatever has to be connected — and a decision on who has the final word when two departments do the same thing differently. What stretches these projects is almost never the programming.

What custom software in Terrassa costs

This service is priced per project, not per monthly fee: it depends on what has to be built and it is agreed in writing before starting, with the scope spelled out. That is how it appears on our pricing page, alongside the rest of the bespoke development catalogue.

What does have a published rate is the web and presence side, in case it helps as a reference: from 100 € a month for a landing page and 200 € for a website, with presence plans at 400, 750 and 1,500 € a month. All excluding VAT and with no lock-in.

One piece of advice that earns us nothing: if the budget is tight, do only the first step. Getting the data out and storing it elsewhere costs little and is what prevents the big disaster.

We work from Palamós and drive up to the Vallès

We are based in Palamós and work with companies in Terrassa and across the Vallès. The first visit is worth doing there, in front of that same computer and with whoever uses it; the rest of the project runs fine remotely.

If you want a first opinion with no commitment, send us a photo of that program's main screen over WhatsApp and tell us roughly what year it is from. That is enough to say where we would start.