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Hexploits

Product engineering

From spreadsheets to systems: automating the processes your business runs on Excel

Most established businesses run at least one important process on Excel, email and a shared drive: quoting, scheduling, stock, reconciliation, compliance records, board reporting. It works, which is why it has lasted, and it breaks when the person who built it leaves, the volume doubles, or two people edit it at once. Hexploits turns these processes into systems one at a time: the same logic, the same people, with validation, permissions, an audit trail, integration with the systems around it, and the automation that removes the copying and re-keying. Nothing is replaced until the new system has run beside the old one and the numbers agree.

Request a proposalTalk to an engineer

A named engineer replies within one working day. A written scope and an indicative price within two.

Who this is for

  • Operations and finance directors whose month-end, quoting or scheduling depends on a spreadsheet only one person understands.
  • Businesses where the same data is typed into a spreadsheet, a finance system and a CRM by three different people.
  • Firms whose auditor, regulator or customer has asked for controls a spreadsheet cannot provide.
  • Companies that have grown past what Excel was ever meant to do, and know it.

What you get

Deliverables, not slogans. Each one appears in the statement of work.

  • A map of the process as it actually runs, including the exceptions and the workarounds, written with the people who run it.
  • A system that does what the spreadsheet does, with validation, permissions, versioning and an audit trail built in.
  • Automation of the steps that are copying, re-keying, chasing and reconciling, with a person kept in the loop where judgement is needed.
  • Integration with finance, CRM and the other systems the data comes from or goes to, so it is entered once.
  • Reporting the board can read, produced from live data rather than assembled at month-end.
  • Parallel running against the spreadsheet until the two agree, then a switchover with the old file kept read-only.

Our engineers work across the major languages, frameworks and cloud platforms. We build on the stack you already run, with technology choices explained in writing before work begins.

How it is delivered

The same four stages as every Hexploits engagement, applied to this capability.

  1. Stage 1

    Discovery

    Two to four weeks. We sit with the people who run the process, read the spreadsheet and its formulas, and find where the time and the errors go. Output: a written scope, a prototype and a fixed figure or capped estimate.

  2. Stage 2

    Build

    The system built in fortnightly increments and demonstrated against real data, starting with the part that hurts most.

  3. Stage 3

    Launch

    Parallel running with the spreadsheet, reconciliation between the two, then switchover team by team with the old file archived.

  4. Stage 4

    Operate

    Small changes, integrations and reporting kept current under deployment and monitoring, or handed to your team with documentation.

How success is measured

Every engagement agrees its measures and the measurement period in writing before work starts.

  • Hours per week spent on the process, measured before and after.
  • Errors and rework per month, and the cost of each.
  • Time from request to completion for the workflow, before and after.
  • Time to produce the month-end or board report.

Proof

Case studies with numbers, and reviews linked to Google where they were left there.

98%Faster page loads

Gradvisor · Charity · 8 weeks to production, then ongoing

98% faster page loads and a 12% smaller cloud bill for a UK careers charity

12% lower cloud cost · 2 days to ship a change
<100 msAPI response time at p95

JobVantage · Recruitment technology · Duration TBC

99.9% availability and sub-100ms responses for a recruitment intelligence platform, at negligible infrastructure cost

99.9%+ availability · <5 s ai processing time for complex media

  • Director, Gradvisor

    “Fantastic company and our development partner for Gradvisor, a social mobility careers platform with national ambitions. Extremely responsive and mission-oriented. Cameron owns any shortfalls humbly - rare for IT providers. Thinks like a client too.”

    Tushar PrabhuDirector, GradvisorRead the review

  • Director, Lothbury

    “Top quality delivery, and reasonable price. Will be using again.”

    Peter DentonDirector, LothburyRead the review

Questions we get asked

We run the whole business on Excel. Is that too small for you?
No. It is where a large share of our engagements start. A business that runs on spreadsheets has already worked out its processes; the work is turning them into systems that survive growth and staff changes, one process at a time, starting with the one that costs the most.
Do we have to replace everything at once?
No, and you should not. One process, usually the one with the most re-keying or the highest error cost, is turned into a system and run beside the spreadsheet until the numbers agree. The next one follows. Excel stays for what it is good at.
What about the formulas and logic in the spreadsheet?
They are the specification. We read them, document them with the people who wrote them, and rebuild them with tests, so the system provably does what the spreadsheet did before it does anything more.
Could a no-code or off-the-shelf tool do this?
Sometimes, and discovery says so when it can. A built system earns its place when the process is core to the business, needs real integration with finance or customers, or needs controls an auditor will accept.
What does it cost?
Discovery is from £4,000 fixed. The build is a fixed price per phase where the scope is defined, or a monthly retainer from £480 per engineer per day. A focused process typically goes from discovery to pilot in six to twelve weeks.

Related

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Product engineering overview

Next step

Request a proposal.

Tell us about the system and the sector. A named engineer replies within one working day. A written scope and an indicative price within two working days of a short scoping call.

Request a proposalTalk to an engineer