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Enterprise Systems

Internal systems that match how you actually work

When the off-the-shelf product covers most of the process and your team does the rest by hand, that gap is where the cost is. We build the system that closes it: roles, workflows, approvals, reporting and the integrations that keep it in step with everything else.

When a company outgrows bought software

Every growing company accumulates the same debt: a licensed system that does 70% of the job, three spreadsheets that do the rest, and a handful of people who are the only ones who understand how the pieces fit. It works, until somebody leaves or the volume doubles. Custom enterprise software is not about replacing everything. It is about building the part that is genuinely yours — the workflow nobody else has, the approval chain your regulator expects, the pricing logic your competitors do not share — and connecting it to the systems that are fine as they are. We design these around roles and permissions first, because that is what makes a multi-department system safe to roll out. Then the workflows, then the reporting, then the audit trail. The result is a system your operations team runs without a developer in the room, and an audit history that can answer who changed what and when.

Key benefits

What this changes for your business.

Roles that reflect the org chart

Permissions modelled on real departments and real seniority, so rolling the system out does not mean giving everyone everything.

Manual steps removed, not renamed

Approvals, hand-offs and status changes happen in the system, which is what turns a process into something measurable.

A defensible audit trail

Every meaningful change records who made it and when. That is the difference between an answer and a guess during an audit.

Reporting from the source

Numbers come from the system of record rather than a monthly spreadsheet somebody assembles by hand.

It talks to what you already run

Accounting, payroll, e-invoicing, warehouse and CRM stay where they are and stay in sync.

What we deliver

The things you actually receive.

  • Operations platforms

    The system your team works from all day: queues, assignments, statuses and the exceptions that need a decision.

  • CRM built around your sales process

    Pipelines, quotes and follow-ups shaped by how you actually sell, not by a vendor's idea of it.

  • ERP-adjacent modules

    Inventory, purchasing, production planning or field service — the module that is genuinely specific to you, beside the ERP that handles the rest.

  • Workflow and approval engines

    Multi-step chains with delegation, escalation, deadlines and a record of every decision.

  • Document and contract management

    Versioned files, permissions, expiry reminders and a search that finds the right one.

  • Reporting and BI layers

    Dashboards for the people running the business and scheduled exports for the people who want a spreadsheet anyway.

  • Data migration from the old system

    Mapping, cleaning, a dry run you can inspect, and a cutover with a rollback plan.

Core capabilities

The engineering disciplines this service draws on.

Role-based access control
Workflow automation
Approval chains
Audit logging
Reporting & dashboards
ERP & CRM integration
Data migration
Enterprise search
Notifications & escalation
Multi-entity & multi-branch
Multi-language operations
SSO & directory integration

Technologies we use

The stack we would reach for, and what each part is for.

Laravel

A mature PHP framework for secure, maintainable server-rendered applications and APIs, with authentication, queues and testing built in.

PHP

The language behind a large share of the web, and a fast, strictly typed one since PHP 8.

Vue.js

A progressive interface framework that can be added to one page of an existing application rather than requiring a rewrite.

TypeScript

Static types over JavaScript. On a codebase several people maintain, it turns a class of runtime bugs into compile-time ones.

PostgreSQL

A relational database with strong support for JSON, full-text search and geospatial data, for models that outgrow plain tables.

MySQL

A widely deployed relational database — a safe, well-understood default for transactional business data.

Redis

An in-memory store used for caching, queues and rate limiting — the difference between a page that waits on the database and one that does not.

Elasticsearch

A search engine for when `LIKE %term%` stops being an answer — typo tolerance, relevance ranking and faceted filtering.

Docker

Containers, so the application a developer runs locally and the one running in production are the same artefact.

AWS

Cloud infrastructure with managed databases, storage and networking, so capacity follows demand instead of a purchase order.

Technology adoption

Technologies in this stack are publicly documented as being used by organisations including those below.

GitLab

Vue.js

Source

Slack

TypeScript

Source

These organisations are named as documented users of the technologies listed. They are not clients of Vertex Arc, and their inclusion does not imply any relationship with or endorsement of Vertex Arc.

Industries we serve

Sectors where this service tends to fit well.

  • Manufacturing
  • Logistics
  • Professional Services
  • Healthcare
  • Real Estate
  • Retail

Our delivery process

How an engagement runs, from first conversation to ongoing support.

  1. Discovery

    We work out what the software has to do, who uses it, and which constraints are real. The output is a written scope, not a proposal.

  2. Architecture

    Data model, boundaries, integrations and infrastructure decided and agreed before anybody writes application code.

  3. Design

    Flows and interface, including the empty, error and permission states that decide how the product actually feels.

  4. Development

    Built in reviewable increments against a conventional structure, with tests around the parts that would be expensive to break.

  5. QA & security

    Functional testing, performance checks, and a review of authentication, authorisation and dependency risk before launch.

  6. Launch

    Deployment, monitoring, and a period of close attention while real traffic finds what staging did not.

  7. Continuous improvement

    Patches, upgrades and new work through the support system, so the product keeps being maintained rather than quietly ageing.

Use cases

What this looks like as a finished product.

Order-to-delivery platform

One record follows an order from quote through production, stock, dispatch and invoice, with each department seeing only its own step.

Approval and compliance workflow

Requests routed by amount, department and risk, with deadlines, delegation and a record an auditor can follow.

Management reporting layer

The numbers the board asks for every month, produced by the system instead of by three people the week before.

Why Vertex Arc

We model your process, not a generic one

Discovery starts with watching how the work is done today, including the workarounds. Those are usually the requirement.

Permissions designed before features

A multi-department system that gets access control wrong is unrolled, not fixed. It is the first thing we agree.

Rolled out department by department

Nobody switches the whole company over on a Monday. We go one team at a time, with the old process still available.

Documented for your own IT team

Architecture notes, data dictionary and runbooks, because at some point somebody other than us will need to change it.

Frequently asked questions

Should we replace our ERP or build alongside it?
Almost always build alongside. Replacing a working ERP is a multi-year programme with a high failure rate; building the module that is genuinely specific to you and integrating it is months, and it is reversible.
How do you handle data from the old system?
We map it, clean it and load it into a staging copy you can inspect before anything goes live. Migration problems are found on the dry run, not on cutover weekend.
Can our own IT team maintain it afterwards?
Yes, and it is built on that assumption. Conventional framework, documented architecture, real tests and a handover session. Nothing depends on a private tool of ours.
What about single sign-on and our directory?
Supported. We integrate with the identity provider you already use so accounts, joiners and leavers are managed in one place rather than two.