Access database replacement · Recruitment · UK
Your candidate database is an Access file. I rebuild it as a browser-based web app, from £1,950 with no per-seat fees, in about two weeks.
It holds candidates, vacancies, placements, rates and right to work dates. It was built years ago by somebody who has since left. It sits on a shared drive, it locks up when two consultants open it at once. Nobody wants to touch it. I rebuild it as a web application that runs in a browser, on the office PC, on a laptop at home or on a phone in a car park before an interview.
Send me what you are running now and I will tell you in writing what it would take to replace it, free.
Symptoms
The database has been placed in a state by user 'ADMIN' on machine 'FRONT-DESK' that prevents it from being opened or locked.
Somebody left it open over lunch. Nobody else can work until they come back or their machine is restarted.
The Microsoft Access database engine stopped the process because you and another user are attempting to change the same data at the same time.
Two consultants updated the same candidate. One of those updates is now gone and neither of them knows which.
Unrecognized database format 'S:\Recruitment\candidates.accdb'
The file corrupted on the network share. You are now working out how old last night's backup is.
Microsoft Access has stopped working
Office updated overnight. The database that ran fine on Friday will not open on Monday.
Why it happens
Access was designed for one person at a desk. A shared .accdb file on a network drive is several people writing into one file at the same time. That is not a fault to be patched. It is the design working as intended, in a setting it was never intended for.
Right to work expiry, DBS, ticket and certification renewals. When those live as typed text inside a general notes box, nothing can sort them. So somebody keeps a parallel spreadsheet, or nobody does and it gets found in an audit.
Pay rate in one place, charge rate in another, margin worked out in a third. Every placement becomes a small manual calculation. Small manual calculations are where money quietly goes missing.
Ten years of somebody adding a column when a client asked for something. The forms stopped matching the tables a long while back. The person who understood why has left.
The replacement
Your process, not a generic one. These are the parts most agency builds end up with. Yours is scoped from what you actually do.
Pricing
The mainstream recruitment systems are priced per user, per month. That model is fine while there are two of you. It becomes an annual bill that never stops climbing the moment you take on consultants. It is the reason a lot of small agencies stay on the Access file long after it stopped being safe.
This is a one-off build. You pay for the software once, you own it and adding a fifth consultant costs the same as adding the first: nothing. There is optional support afterwards at £75 a month or £750 a year. That figure does not change with headcount either.
Full breakdown, including the routes I think are cheaper than me in some cases, is on the cost page.
Your data
They come with you. I work from a copy of your file, pull the tables out and bring them across as they are. Your existing history stays intact rather than starting again on an empty system, which matters when the value of the database is fifteen years of who you have placed where.
Retention gets easier rather than harder. Consent dates and last contact dates become real fields, so records due for review can be listed on demand instead of hunted for. Deletions can be logged. I build the mechanism and I do not decide your policy. What your retention period should be is a question for you and whoever handles your data protection.
If you ever want to leave, you take the lot. The application files and a full export of your data are yours free on request, whenever you ask.
How it works
The Access file, or screenshots of the forms if you would rather not send the data. Tell me what goes wrong most often.
Written. What it would become, what it would cost, how long it would take. If a standard product would serve you better, it says that instead.
Around two weeks. You see it working part way through, not at the end, so a wrong assumption gets caught early.
Your data is loaded before you go live. Most people run both for a week, then quietly stop opening the old one.
Price
Starting priceFrom £1,950
£1,950 covers one system rebuilt properly. A candidate and vacancy database at the size a small agency runs sits in that bracket. Timesheets, a client-facing portal or anything that has to talk to your accounts package is more work, so it costs more. The blueprint tells you that before you commit rather than halfway through.
I am a sole trader, so there is no VAT to add and no per-user licence behind it. What there is not, is a team. I take a few of these at a time and I will tell you early if yours is not a good fit for me.
Questions
No. A CRM is built for the average agency and you fit yourself around it. This is built around the way you already work, using your stages, your fields and your rate structure. If a standard CRM would genuinely serve you better, I will say so in the blueprint rather than take the job.
No. The price covers the build, not the number of people using it. Adding a consultant costs nothing. Optional support afterwards is £75 a month or £750 a year. That is the same figure whether there are two of you or twenty.
They stay yours. What changes is that the system can help you meet them. Consent dates and last contact dates are stored as real fields, so records due for review can be listed rather than hunted for. Deletions can be logged. I build the mechanism. Setting the policy is your job.
Yes. It is usually the first thing worth moving. Expiry dates held as dates rather than as text in a notes box can be sorted and filtered, so who lapses in the next thirty days becomes a list you can look at. Documents attach to the candidate record so the evidence sits with the person.
No. Record volume is rarely the problem. Access struggles with several people writing to one file over a network long before it struggles with row counts, which is why an agency of four can hit trouble on a database of ten thousand candidates.
Sometimes. If that is the cheaper answer I will say so in the blueprint. Most of these failures are structural though. A file being written to over a network by several people is not a fault to be patched. Repairing it buys you time rather than fixing the cause.
No to both. It is hosted and it runs in a browser. If your consultants can open a website, they can use it.
Next step
Email me the Access file, or just describe what it does and what keeps going wrong. You get a written answer covering what it would become, what it would cost and how long it would take. No call required. Nothing to sign.
Joe Thorp · ToolWright · Suite 708, 80A Ruskin Ave, Welling, DA16 3QQ
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