Software for the parts of the business a website never touches.
No client has bought this yet, so there are no case studies on this page.
The four services
Each of these is scoped first, then fixed-quoted in writing. There is no starting price, and the payment schedule is set out in the quote.
What runs in this business
Smart Labs uses its own software to remove repeated administrative work.
Invoice raised from an approved quote
One command turns an approved quote into a real Stripe invoice with GST and ABN attached, and refuses to run if a detail is missing. No retyping, and no invoice built by hand.
Marketing assets produced from an approved format
The layout is designed once, then one command produces every size a post needs from it. Publishing does not wait on an afternoon of resizing.
Workflow automation
A task your team repeats by hand, handed to software, using the systems you already pay for.
Example: a new enquiry
An enquiry arrives
Details checked and tidied
A job created in your system
You are told if a step fails
You receive
- A written map of the process as it runs today
- The automation itself
- Alerting, so a silent break is visible
- A handover doc: how it runs, how to change it
Not included
- Running it for you, unless agreed separately
- Work needing a licence I do not hold
- The AI receptionist, which is not for sale
Business dashboards
One screen for the numbers you run the business on, reading from the systems that already hold them.
Most dashboard disagreements turn out to be about definitions, so each number is defined in writing before it is built.
What gets agreed before anything is built
Example
- The number
- Open matters, in plain words.
- Its definition
- What counts as open, and the date it is counted from.
- Where it comes from
- The one system treated as correct.
- How current it is
- Refreshed hourly, daily, or on demand.
- Who can see it
- Named people, not a public link.
Not included
- Data warehousing beyond the agreed sources
- Backfilling history that was never recorded
- Third-party licences, which stay yours
Internal tools
Small software shaped around how your team already works. The system below is the one I run Smart Labs on: it reads the state of every project and turns it into a short list of decisions.
Not included
- Multi-tenant SaaS products
- App-store mobile builds
- Regulated data without a written agreement
AI consulting
A written assessment of where AI would help your business and where it would not, then one agreed use case built with a person checking the output.
Usually worth doing
Narrow, repetitive work a person can check quickly. Drafting a first reply that someone edits before it sends.
Usually not
Judgement calls, anything you cannot verify, and anything that has to be right every time.
Not included
- The AI receptionist, which is not for sale
- Model training or fine-tuning
- Putting client data into a third-party model without a written agreement
- Anything that decides on its own with no human check
Tell me which part of the week you would like back.
If software is the wrong answer, I will say so rather than sell you a dashboard.
Discuss your project