Custom systems
Some businesses do not fit anything on the market. We build the system that does: your steps, your words, your screens, nothing generic to work around. A Singapore company may be able to put part of the cost through the Enterprise Development Grant.
For Singapore registered companies. Approval is never guaranteed, and we will say so honestly if we think a project will not clear it.1
Not customers, orders and products. Whatever your business actually calls things.
Before anything else
Custom work is the right call less often than people think, and it is expensive when it is the wrong one. Here is the honest test, and we would rather you applied it now than after a quote.
How it works
A conversation, not a pitch. What you actually do all day, where it breaks, and whether software is even the answer. If it is not, we say so and you have lost an hour.
A written scope: every screen, every rule, what it costs and how long it takes. Priced up front, so you are never signing up to an open meter.
If the project qualifies, the paperwork is prepared and submitted before any work begins. We have been through it and we do this part with you.
You see it working while it is being built, not at the end. A change is cheap on a Tuesday and expensive after handover, so we would rather you looked early and often.
Step three really is step three. A project that has already started cannot be claimed. That is the most common way a business loses the funding: they begin the work, then think about the grant.1
What we build
Orders in one app, jobs in another, stock in a spreadsheet, invoices somewhere else. One system where an order becomes a job becomes an invoice, and nothing is typed twice.
Patients, cases, sites, batches, cohorts, vessels, consignments. Your own words on your own screens, so nobody on your team has to translate before they can work.
Clients, members, contractors, parents, tenants, suppliers. They see their own things and do their own admin, and your inbox stops being the user interface.
Every business has a process nobody else has. Usually it is the part that makes the money, and almost always it is living in a spreadsheet one person guards.
Your accounting, your payment provider, your marketplace, the files your suppliers send. A system that ignores everything else you use is just another island.
On a phone, in a van, on a shop floor, one thumb, no training. The people doing the work decide whether a system gets used, and they decide it in the first week.
Enterprise Development Grant
EDG co-funds transformation projects for Singapore companies, and a system built around how you work is exactly the kind of project it was written for. It is a reimbursement rather than a discount: you pay, then you claim. The standard support level for SMEs is 50 percent of qualifying costs.
| A S$15,000 project | Amount |
|---|---|
| Project cost | S$15,000 |
| Required audit, estimated | S$1,800 |
| Total qualifying cost | S$16,800 |
| Enterprise Development Grant, 50% | −S$8,400 |
| Your share before any credit | S$8,400 |
| SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit, if your company still holds a balance | −S$7,560 |
| What you actually pay | about S$840 |
An illustration on round numbers, not a quote.2
The grant was written for larger transformation projects, and the smallest one we have taken through was around S$15,000. Whether something smaller clears it depends entirely on scope, so it is worth asking rather than assuming the answer.3
Nothing can be claimed once a project has started, so the application is the first thing that happens and not the last. Processing commonly runs eight to twelve weeks from a complete application.
Support levels, credits and the schemes themselves are being redrawn. We keep the working detail in one place so it stays current instead of quietly going stale on a sales page.
Who builds it
snapbook.ai is a full back office used by Singapore businesses every day: bookkeeping, payroll, CPF, GST, invoicing, CRM, bookings, an online shop. The people who would build your system are the people who built and still run that.
Every rule in it about CPF, GST, IR8A and ACRA is there because we had to file it ourselves first. That is a very different thing from reading a specification and hoping.
The person who scopes your project is the person who writes the code. Nothing is handed to a junior after the sale, and there is nobody in between you and the build.
Software is easy to start and hard to still be running in five years.Which is why the interesting question is never what it can do on the day it is delivered.
Questions
It depends entirely on scope, which is why the first step is a conversation rather than a price list. What we can tell you is the shape: the smallest project we have taken through the grant was around S$15,000, and with EDG support and an intact SkillsFuture credit a project that size can come down to roughly five percent of its cost. You get a written scope with a fixed figure before you commit to anything.
Not a published one, and honestly we do not know where the floor is. EDG was written for larger transformation projects and each one is assessed on its own scope, so a smaller project is not ruled out, it is simply less certain. Below a couple of thousand dollars the grant paperwork costs more time than it returns, and we would tell you that rather than take the work.
No, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Enterprise Singapore assesses each project on its own scope and outcomes. We will tell you honestly what we think your chances look like before you spend time on an application, and if we think it will not clear we will say so.
No. We are the vendor that builds the thing, and we help with the paperwork because we have been through it for our own projects. Worth knowing: management consultancy costs under EDG have to come from a certified consultant, while software and technical vendor costs do not carry that requirement.
The build depends on scope and the scope document gives you a date before you commit. The part people underestimate is the grant: processing commonly runs eight to twelve weeks from a complete application, and work cannot start until it is approved. Plan for that first, not last.
You do. It is written into the scope before any work starts, so there is nothing left to argue about later.4
Software that nobody looks after stops working, so support and hosting are agreed in the same scope rather than discovered afterwards. You will know what it costs to keep running before you agree to build it.
No. A custom system stands on its own and plenty have nothing to do with the platform. If your back office is also a mess then Pro 365 is there for S$365 a year, but it is not a condition of anything, and we are not going to make you buy one to get the other.
Usually, yes. Your accounting package, your payment provider, your marketplace, the files your suppliers send. Whether a particular tool can be connected depends on what it lets other software do, and that is one of the first things the scope answers.
No, that is the normal starting point. Most people arrive knowing what hurts rather than what to build, and working that out is the first conversation. There is no charge for it and there is no obligation at the end of it.
Get in touch
What you do, what breaks, and what you have already tried. You will get a straight answer, including the answer that you do not need us.
No sales call unless you ask for one. If a standard tool already solves it, we will point you at it and say so.
We will read it properly and come back to you with a straight answer: whether it is worth building, roughly what it would take, whether the grant is likely to fit, or why we think you do not need it.
Anything to add in the meantime, [email protected] reaches the same place.