Thirty years of records, one machine in the corner nobody dares turn off, and a version of Windows that is going out of support. We move businesses off Access onto a web system their whole team can use, and we bring the data with us.
Access databases do not fail loudly. They just quietly stop fitting. One person can be in it at a time, it only runs on that machine, the person who built it left in 2011, and every year it gets harder to find anyone who will touch it. Then Microsoft moves on and suddenly there is a date on it.
The answer is almost never to rebuild the same thing in the same shape. We look at what the business actually does now, keep the bits that earn their place, drop the fields nobody has filled in since 2014, and build a system your office, your drivers or your engineers, and your customers can all use at once.
The records come with you. Every job, every customer, every historic line, migrated and checked rather than started again from a blank screen. We have moved a courier firm off a 32-bit Access back office that had carried NHS work for over forty years, and nobody lost a single job record.
Tables, queries, forms and the macros somebody bolted on in a hurry. We work out what the business genuinely relies on before anybody designs anything.
Historic records moved across and reconciled, not abandoned. You keep the history you have spent decades building up.
A web system, so the office, the people out on the road and your customers can all be in it at the same time, from any device.
The double entry, the re-typing and the spreadsheet that shadows the database all disappear into one record.
Your stages, your rates, your paperwork. We fit the software to the business, not the business to somebody else's software.
Hosting, backups, changes and support from the people who built it, on a monthly plan if you want one.
Dixons Dispatch ran on a 32-bit Access back office being switched off at the end of 2026. It is now one platform with three doors: office, drivers and customers.
Sometimes the honest answer is that an off-the-shelf tool does this, cheaper, and somebody else maintains it. We say so, and we would rather say it than sell you a build.
The migration is the risky half and it is the half we plan first. Records are moved, counted and checked against the old system before anybody switches anything off.
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LiveYes, that is usually the first thing we plan. We map every table and field, move the data across, then count and check it against the old database before anything is switched off. You keep your history.
No. The point of building something bespoke is that it fits how you already run the job. We will flag anywhere your process only exists because Access made you do it that way, then it is your call whether to keep it.
It depends on how much the database does. A single-purpose one is a matter of weeks, a full back office with invoicing, scheduling and reporting is longer. You get a timeline before anything starts, and the clock runs from when we have everything from you.
Systems are quoted per job, because no two Access databases hold the same mess. Alex prices every one himself after a proper look at what is in yours. Book a call and you will get a straight number.
If you want them to. A customer portal is one of the most common things we add at this point, because the calls asking where something is stop almost overnight.
The whole picture: CRMs, portals, booking diaries and the reporting underneath them.
Learn more →A forty-year-old courier firm moved off a dying Access database onto one live platform.
Learn more →If what you really need is the customer and job side, start here.
Learn more →Book a free 20-minute call. Tell us what it holds and how many people use it, and we will tell you straight what it would take to replace.
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