Custom builds
Custom restaurant software, built by operators
We build custom back-office tools for restaurant groups, chains, and franchises, and they run inside the same Smooth Ops app your team already uses. A one time build cost on top of your normal plan, quoted once we understand the job. The difference from a development agency is that we run restaurants: 14+ years across 20+ locations, and every example below exists because we hit the problem ourselves.
Three things we built because we needed them
These are not a product roadmap. They are examples of the shape custom work takes: a specific operational problem, a rule that catches it, and an alert that arrives while you can still do something about it.
Utilities
A demand-charge alarm
Commercial electricity is not billed only on what you use. On a time-of-use plan, one fifteen-minute spike can move you into a higher demand tier and follow you across the whole bill.
We built a monitor for one of our own Long Beach locations that watches peak load against the threshold that changes the rate, and warns before the line gets crossed rather than after the bill arrives.
Scheduling
Holes in next week's schedule
A gap in coverage is cheap to fix on Wednesday and expensive to discover on Friday night, when the only fix left is calling people in.
A check that reads the draft schedule before it is posted and surfaces the uncovered stretches, so the fix happens while it is still a draft.
Labor
Was it a trade, or a missed punch?
Somebody is still clocked in two hours after their shift ended. That is either a covered shift trade you should pay for, or a forgotten clock-out you should correct. They look identical in a timesheet.
We built the audit that tells them apart, and wrote up how it works. Read how the clock-out audit works.
Why this pays off faster across a group
A rule that saves twenty minutes a week is a rounding error at one location. Across thirty, it is a job. The same is true of the money: a demand charge you did not notice, a missed clock-out you paid out, a Friday you covered with overtime because nobody caught the gap on Wednesday. Small at one site, systemic at thirty.
Group pricing stays per location, so you are not paying an enterprise platform fee for the privilege of being large, and there is no implementation project to sit through before anything works. If you want the standard modules first, the restaurant group setup covers how multi-location works today.
What we will turn down
We are not a development agency and we do not take every job. If what you need already exists somewhere cheaper, we will point you at it. If it is a POS replacement, a payroll engine, or anything that puts us between you and a regulator, that is not work we should be doing.
The work that goes well is narrow and operational: a rule, a threshold, a check that runs on a schedule and tells somebody when it trips. That is the shape all three examples above share, and it is the shape worth emailing us about.
Custom builds, answered
What counts as a custom build?+
Anything your operation needs that our standard modules do not already do. Most custom builds start the same way: a module is close but your kitchen, your group, or your franchise agreement does something its own way, and the gap is the part that keeps costing you money. We build that part inside the same app your team already uses, so it is not another login.
Do you work with restaurant groups and franchises?+
Yes, and multi-unit is where custom work usually pays for itself fastest. A rule that saves twenty minutes a week is a rounding error at one location and real money across thirty. Pricing stays per location, so a group is not paying an enterprise platform fee for the privilege of being large.
How much does a custom build cost?+
It is a one time build cost on top of your normal monthly plan, quoted once we understand the job. We do not quote before we understand it, and if what you are asking for is not worth building, or already exists somewhere cheaper, we will tell you that instead of taking the work.
What makes you different from a software development agency?+
We run restaurants. Every example on this page was built because we hit the problem ourselves across 20+ locations and 14+ years, not because a client filed a ticket. A development agency can write the code, but you will spend the first month explaining what a demand charge is, why a shift trade is not a scheduling error, and what actually happens at close.
Do I have to use the rest of Smooth Ops?+
You need at least one module, since a custom build lives inside the app rather than standing alone. Beyond that, no. Modules are $25 a month per location and you take only the ones you want, so the base you are building on can stay small.
How do I start?+
Email team@smoothopsapp.com and describe the problem, not the solution. The most useful first message is the thing that keeps going wrong, what it costs you when it does, and how you handle it today. We will tell you straight whether it is worth building.
Tell us the part that keeps going wrong
Describe the problem, not the solution. We will tell you straight whether it is worth building.
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