Custom Software Development · Truro · TR1 · Cornwall
Custom Software Development in Truro
As Cornwall's only city and commercial hub, Truro is home to the public sector bodies, professional services firms, tourism operators and food and craft brands that the rest of the county leans on. When off-the-shelf software cannot keep up, that is where we come in.
Trusted by:
Truro's organisations run on systems keeping up with the work. When software cannot, things slip.
As Cornwall's only city, Truro carries a weight out of proportion to its size. It is the county's administrative centre and commercial hub: public sector bodies and council services, a concentration of professional services firms, the tourism and hospitality operators that drive so much of the regional economy, and the food, drink and craft brands Cornwall is known for. These are organisations where bookings, records, stock, compliance and customer information all have to line up precisely, and where a clunky system or a manual workaround does not just slow people down. It quietly costs money every day.
The same pressures run far beyond the city centre, through the businesses across the wider county that look to Truro as their base: holiday and accommodation operators along the coast, producers and makers shipping nationally, and the firms providing legal, financial and professional support to all of them. In each of these, the gap between what the work actually involves and what the software thinks is happening is where the problems live.
We are based in Kent, not Cornwall, but that has no bearing on the work. We build for clients right across the UK, almost entirely remotely, with everything written by our own in-house team. For bespoke software, the depth of that experience and direct access to the people building it matter far more than how close we are. And when a project genuinely benefits from us being in Truro in person, we will make the trip.
The operational problems bespoke software is built to fix
The specific failures look different in every organisation, but the patterns are consistent. Any of these close to home?
A spreadsheet running something critical
Somewhere in the organisation, a spreadsheet is doing the job a proper system should be doing. It works, more or less, as long as the right person is in, has not made an error, and has remembered to save it.
Bookings and records nobody can see at a glance
A customer or client calls with a query. Someone checks an inbox, a calendar and a folder of documents before they can answer. The information exists, but it is scattered across half a dozen places.
Manual data entry bridging two systems
An order, booking or enquiry in one system gets typed into another by hand. Every entry is an opportunity for error and a drain on someone's time that adds no value to the work.
Compliance and records held together by memory
Data, access and audit obligations matter, especially for public sector and professional work, but they depend on people remembering to do the right thing rather than a system that enforces it.
Reporting that is always historical
The numbers you need to make decisions are available at the end of the week, or the month, or after someone has spent a morning pulling them together. A busy organisation needs current data.
Off-the-shelf software that almost fits
A packaged product does eighty per cent of what you need, and the missing twenty per cent is handled by workarounds, side spreadsheets and processes built around the software's limitations rather than your own.
Bespoke software for Truro's public sector, tourism, professional and craft businesses
Booking and reservation systems
For tourism, hospitality and accommodation operators: real-time availability, online booking, deposits and payments, and a single live view of what is booked. Built around how you actually take and manage reservations rather than a generic template.
Operations and case management
For professional services and public sector work: structured records, workflow that moves a matter or case from start to finish, document handling, and proper access control so the right people see the right information and nothing slips through.
Customer and client portals
A secure login area where your clients or service users can submit information, track progress, access documents and get updates without calling your team. Access-controlled data from your own systems rather than email threads and shared folders.
Stock, orders and despatch
For food, drink and craft brands selling beyond Cornwall: order management, stock control, and despatch that keeps the system in step with what is actually leaving the door, feeding cleanly into your accounts and ecommerce platforms.
Integrations between systems
Connecting your tools to payment providers, accounts and payroll packages, booking platforms, ecommerce stores and supplier feeds so data flows without manual re-entry. If a system has an API or an SFTP feed, we can connect to it.
Dashboards and reporting
A live view of bookings, throughput, caseloads, stock or performance without someone extracting and formatting data first. Numbers that are always current because they come straight from the live system.
A UK-wide track record, delivered remotely, with proven long-term results.
Distance has never been a constraint on the work. We deliver for clients across the UK from our own in-house team, and the same approach applies whether a client is down the road in Kent or across the country in Cornwall. A selection of the systems we have built and kept running:
- CDS Global — high-volume fulfilment and publishing software managing national despatch, in continuous production for over a decade
- Jones Hire — warehouse picking app, customer ordering platform and live driver delivery tracking
- Hearst Communications — circulation and fulfilment management for national consumer magazine titles
- Telegraph Media Group — subscription and reader services management at scale
- BPC Energy — bespoke operations platform covering stock, orders and logistics management
- AX Paris and Motel Rocks — ecommerce and back-office systems for high-volume fashion retail
What our clients say
20 clients. A few of their words.
A well-rounded team, ensuring a full suite of expertise & resource is always available. CDS Global have seen the successful completion of major projects over the years where Dev Partners' ability to grasp the underlying business needs to provide a future-proof solution has been invaluable.
We have worked with Jason & his team to develop our Shopify store, and the experience was outstanding from start to finish. The design is clean, modern, and perfectly aligned with our brand identity, while the build is fast, responsive, and easy to manage on the backend. They clearly understood our vision and delivered a store we're genuinely proud of. Highly recommend to any brand looking for a top-quality Shopify partner.
After ongoing issues and delays with our previous developers, we brought in Rob & Jason at Dev Partners to take over all our websites and bespoke software. What a breath of fresh air, fully focused, excellent pre-launch designs and clear communication throughout. Highly recommended.
BPC Energy Ltd turned to Dev Partners for a complete turnkey solution, and they exceeded our expectations. The team handled everything from project management to development and support with real care and attention. They understood what we were aiming for, stayed on top of every detail, and always delivered on schedule with excellent quality.
Working with Dev Partners to redesign and modernise our WMS system: the whole process has been thoroughly professional from the outset and a delight to work with. Cannot recommend enough.
Great agency. Have used Dev Partners for several years and they have built 20+ sites for us, in addition to taking on our legacy websites, upgrading and maintaining. Easy to work with and some great practical ideas to improve our digital offerings.
Jones Hire have been working with Dev Partners on several projects, which have been very successful. They linked our catering database to a new improved website so clients can easily place and update orders, created a custom warehouse picking app to fulfil all our challenging requirements, and are currently developing a custom transport app to streamline our loading and delivery process.
We have been trying to reinvent our website for over 5 years, trying to make it convert and failing each time. Spoke to Rob at Dev Partners, the team helped create our new site and the improvement was instant.
We have been working with Rob and the team for about 10 years now. Dev Partners helped us build a completely bespoke CRM from scratch which manages our daily business and is always well maintained. We have been able to use the system and roll it out in our new franchise branches.
We collaborated with Dev Partners on the front end of a fairly complex telemarketing platform. Rob and Jason took the time to properly understand the moving parts, asked the right questions, and delivered a clean, intuitive interface that's made the system far easier for our team to use.
I have been working with the team at Dev Partners for the last 3 years and we have always been impressed with the speed in which they act on things for us, along with the honest open communication. The team are a valuable and vital part of our supply chain.
We've had a program for our business in the electronic security sector that Dev Partners developed and keep up to date. They've never let us down, always there when needed. Thanks Rob and the team.
Dev Partners have been working with us for just over 2 years. They have significantly upgraded and redesigned our existing web platforms, and always deliver a first class service.
Dev Partners helped us build an event website. The team were very knowledgeable, easy to work with and quick to deliver a high quality product.
Working with Dev Partners has been an exceptional experience. Their team is highly skilled, professional, and committed to delivering results. What truly sets them apart is their communication and transparency; we always felt informed, supported, and confident.
We've worked with Dev Partners a few times to support us on bespoke web build tasks. They're very easy to work with, approachable, and explain the detail in a way that's understandable. A great partner for technical issues at sensible prices.
Excellent customer service backed up with solid experience. As a media business we have had five websites built by Dev Partners. I would certainly recommend them.
Found Dev Partners and they were great, nothing too much trouble. They managed to help us with integrating our old existing system with Shopify.
I've worked with Rob and his team off and on for many years and have always found them to be professional, knowledgeable, and best of all, they listen to their clients and deliver what is required.
We have worked with Dev Partners for 7 years and can highly recommend them for their expertise and excellent customer service.
Questions people don't always ask, but should
If you've been burned by a developer before, or you're nervous about committing to a project of this size, these are the questions worth asking any agency you're considering. Here are our honest answers.
This is the most common thing we hear, and it is a completely reasonable concern. We cannot guarantee a different experience just by saying so. What we can tell you is how we work: you deal directly with Rob or Jason throughout, not with an account manager who relays messages to a development team you never speak to. Every project has a fixed scope agreed before development starts. You see working software at regular intervals, not a finished product six months later that does not match what you asked for. Most of our clients have been with us for years. If you want to speak to some of them, ask us and we will arrange it.
Scope creep is the main reason software projects go over budget, and it almost always happens because the requirements were not properly understood before the price was set. We do not give quotes before we understand the problem. The analysis phase exists specifically to surface the complexity before we commit to a price. Once scope is agreed, we work to it. If you want to add something that was not in the original scope, we quote for it separately rather than absorbing it into the project and adjusting the final invoice. You always know where you stand.
No. The code we write is yours outright from day one. It is written in standard, well-documented PHP using mainstream frameworks that any competent developer can read and maintain. If you wanted to move to a different developer in the future, you could. We would hand over the codebase cleanly and there would be no lock-in. The reason most of our clients stay with us for years is not because they are stuck. It is because they have found a development partner that works and they do not want to change.
Size is not what makes a software project succeed. Structure, communication, and technical depth are what make it succeed. We have built systems for Telegraph Media Group, CDS Global, Motel Rocks, and AX Paris. These are not simple projects. The advantage of working with us over a larger agency is that the people who scoped your project are the people building it, and you can reach them directly when something needs a decision. At a larger agency you get account managers, project managers, and a development team you have never spoken to. That is not better. It is just bigger.
Most of our clients do not have a technical person internally. That is often why they come to us. We translate the technical side into plain language, flag decisions in terms of business impact rather than code complexity, and document everything so your team can use and understand the system without needing a developer in the room. The goal is always to make the software something your team can run confidently, not something they depend on us to operate.
They underestimated because they quoted before they understood the requirements properly. We do not give timelines before we have done the analysis. When we do give a timeline, it is based on what we actually found during scoping rather than an optimistic estimate designed to win the work. We also build in contingency rather than assuming everything will go smoothly. Software projects encounter unexpected complexity. The question is whether you planned for it.
We are still here. This is not a project shop that delivers and moves on. Most clients move to a support and development retainer after launch because software changes as the business changes. For the period immediately after go-live, we monitor closely and fix any issues quickly. Because we built it, we can diagnose and resolve problems faster than any third party coming in cold. The post-launch relationship is something we consider part of the project, not an optional extra.
A quote that varies that much almost certainly means the agencies were quoting different things. The £5k quote probably assumed the requirements are simpler than they are, skipped proper analysis, or plans to deliver something that technically works but does not do what you actually need. The £80k quote likely includes significant agency overhead, management layers, and a team that has never spoken to you. Our quotes are based on a proper understanding of the requirements. We will explain exactly what is driving the number, and if it surprises you, we will talk you through why.
Dev Partners has been trading since 2008, run by the same two people throughout. We did not take investment, we do not have a growth target that requires us to sell or scale aggressively, and we have no intention of going anywhere. We are a sustainable, profitable small business that looks after a relatively small number of clients very well. That model has not changed in 17 years. We also write all code to a standard that means any competent PHP developer can take it over if the worst did happen. You are not betting your system on our survival.
Questions from Truro and Cornwall businesses
Yes. We deliver for clients right across the UK and almost all of this work runs remotely, with calls, screen-shares and regular progress demos. Truro is a long way from our Gravesend office, but distance has no bearing on the quality of the software. You get the same in-house team, the same direct access to the founders, and the same standard of work regardless of postcode.
You deal with Rob and Jason, the founders, directly. There is no account-management layer and no offshore team you never speak to. The people scoping your project are the people responsible for delivering it, which is a big part of why working remotely from Cornwall is no obstacle.
Yes. As Cornwall's administrative and commercial hub, a lot of Truro work involves public sector bodies, professional services firms and organisations with real obligations around data, access control and audit trails. We build proper access-controlled systems with the security, reporting and record-keeping those requirements demand, rather than spreadsheets stretched past their limit.
Usually yes. Booking platforms, accounts and payroll packages, payment providers, ecommerce stores, CRMs and supplier feeds are all things we connect to routinely. If a system has an API or an SFTP feed, we can almost always link it up so data flows without manual re-entry between Truro and wherever the rest of your operation sits.
Yes, outright. The source code and your data are yours from day one. No licence traps, no ongoing dependency on us to keep the system running, and no lock-in. We stay involved because clients choose to keep us, not because they have no other option.
A phone or video call to talk through the problem. From there we scope the work, give you a fixed price rather than an open-ended estimate, and agree a plan with clear milestones and demos along the way. The whole process works perfectly well remotely, and we will travel to Truro if a particular stage of the project genuinely benefits from it.
Custom software development resources
How we help established businesses, and the areas we cover.
Custom software
Technologies & more
Software for your Truro organisation
Tell us where the work strains. No pitch, no obligation.
Bookings, records, stock, compliance, reporting: wherever the system falls behind what the work actually involves is usually where bespoke software earns back its cost fastest. Tell us about the problem and we will give you a straight view on what is worth fixing.
We will cover:
- The specific problem causing the most friction
- Whether bespoke software or an integration would solve it
- How a remote project with us works in practice
- A realistic scope and fixed cost before any commitment
Based in Gravesend, Kent, working with clients across the UK. We travel to Truro when a project needs it. We reply within one working day. Call 01474 639 089.
Book a free consultation
Tell us about your organisation and we will be in touch within one working day.
