Everything the old system did and everything it couldn’t
How a construction business in the South of England moved from a legacy Microsoft Access application to a bespoke web platform built around its own way of working, losing none of the capability it depended on, and gaining a great deal it never had.
At a glance
| Client | Redacted at client request — referred to throughout as “the client” |
| Sector | Construction and site management |
| Region | London Region |
| Size | 30 staff, 700+ subcontractors |
| Services | Bespoke application development · Legacy system migration · Systems integration · Cloud hosting · Ongoing development partnership |
Where they started
For the best part of twenty years, the client ran its operation on a Microsoft Access database. It had been built in-house, early on, by someone who understood the business well — and for a long time it did exactly what was asked of it. Around it grew a layer of Excel spreadsheets, shared folders and email threads, each one added to patch a gap the original system was never designed to cover.
Efficient coordination of materials, workers and subcontractors in construction is notoriously complex. At any given time the client manages more than 80 live construction sites across the South of England. It works with over 50 subcontractors, each of whom may engage up to 150 operatives — sole traders and small limited companies. That is a very large number of people to keep track of, and every one of them has to be compliant before they set foot on site.
Tracking that compliance — health and safety certification, licences, permits, insurance — was done in the database and in spreadsheets, updated by hand. The process was cumbersome, prone to data entry error, and almost always slightly behind what was actually happening on the ground.
Why it mattered more than an admin headache
An unlicensed operative is an uninsured operative. The implications of a single person arriving on site without a current health and safety certificate or the right parking permit can be immense, legally, financially and reputation. Complex construction projects burn through money fast, and large sites require complete synchronicity of resources so that everything and everyone arrives at the right time, in the right order.
And the technology had moved on
By the time we were introduced, the system had three separate problems. It had outgrown its design: what began as a straightforward record-keeping tool was now carrying processes it was never built for. It was tied to the desktop, so nothing could be seen or updated from a site, from a van, or from home — a limitation that became acute when the industry started working remotely. And it was isolated: it talked to nothing else the business used, so every report meant exporting to Excel and cutting it by hand, and every other system meant keying the same data in twice.
There was also a quieter risk. Twenty years of the organisation’s operating knowledge sat inside a file that very few people fully understood, on a platform with a finite future.
The brief
Magnetar IT was asked to find a better way to manage project workflow using digital technology — without the business losing anything it relied on.
That distinction shaped the whole engagement. A replacement system that quietly drops a handful of small, unglamorous capabilities is not a replacement at all; it is a system people work around, with the old database still open on someone’s desktop “just for that one report”. So the brief was like for like, and then better: rebuild every capability the business genuinely used, and make each one faster, more accessible and, wherever possible, automatic.
How we approached it
We started with the people doing the job rather than with the software. We sat with site managers, project managers and the administrators who kept the compliance records, and mapped the process as it really ran, including every workaround. Workarounds are the most useful thing in a discovery: each one marks a place where the system stopped fitting the business.
From that we built a full inventory of what the old database did — including the functions that only ran once a quarter and the ones only one person knew about. That inventory became the baseline the new platform had to match before it could be considered finished. Alongside it sat a second list: everything the business needed but the old system had never been able to give it. Three decisions shaped everything that followed:
What we built
The result was a full bespoke web application, built around the specific requirements of the client’s part of the construction industry, which took over everything the Access database had been doing and then went considerably further.
Compliance is the clearest example of the difference. The old system recorded licences and certificates; the new one does that too, but it also flags which are nearing end of life and which have actually expired, and confirms at a glance which operatives are fully licensed and can be scheduled for work.
The value moved from the record to the warning. The system triggers notifications one month and one week before an expiry to both the operative and the manager, so there are no nasty surprises for anyone running a busy site. The dashboard shows who is green-lit and ready to work and who needs immediate action. It is the same underlying information the business always held — it simply now arrives before it is needed rather than after.
From an application to a platform
Once the baseline was safely covered, the platform kept growing into the system the whole operation runs on. Each capability was added because the business asked for it, in small releases, rather than in one disruptive rebuild.
Jobs and resourcing
The platform now creates and resources jobs across the entire workforce, generating a personal, customised workflow for every member of the team rather than a single shared schedule that everyone has to interpret.
A mobile app for the people on site
Operatives use a mobile app to see at a glance which site they are working at and for how long, upload certificates and documents straight from their phone, and invoice correctly against the right job. The information arrives from the person closest to it, which is the only reliable way to keep records current.
Integration with third-party systems
The platform connects to the client’s other business systems so data is entered once and flows to where it is needed. Removing double entry removed a whole class of errors along with it.
Communication that happens by itself
Not everyone in a subcontractor supply chain reads email. So, the platform reaches people the way they will actually be reached: automated emails, SMS to a mobile, in-app notifications, and — for those who deal in paper — letters generated and sent automatically, with no one having to write, print, fold, or post anything. Reminders, expiry warnings, and confirmations all go out without human intervention.
Reports and analytics dashboards
Management reporting is no longer an export-and-cut-by-hand exercise. Dashboards give a live picture across every site — compliance status, resourcing, job progress and the trends behind them — so decisions are made on what is happening now rather than on last month’s spreadsheet.
The part that matters most: it never stopped improving
The most valuable outcome of this engagement is not any single feature. It is that the client no longer thinks of its software as a thing that gets built, signed off and then slowly falls behind.
We work to a standing backlog and a regular review rhythm. Ideas come from the people using the system — a site manager who spots a report that would save an hour a week, an administrator who finds a step that could be automated. Changes ship as small, low-risk releases. Nothing has to wait for a rewrite, and nothing has to be big enough to justify a project.
The client has taken that philosophy on as its own. Continuous improvement is now how they think about the business, not just about the software — a considerably better outcome than a system that was merely delivered and signed off.
The results
The platform is now the day-to-day operating system of the business, and nothing the old database did was left behind to get there.
Above all, the platform has given the client the capability to handle continued growth. Information now flows between the operative, the site manager, the project manager, and every department through an intelligent, responsive system.
In their words
“We went from a clunky old access system that didn’t even render on our screens properly to a new bespoke system that is built around our process.
“This solution means that information is flowing through an intelligent, responsive system without the need for human intervention. Fewer emails, no spreadsheets, multiple efficiencies.”
— Lewis Jenkins, Founder, Magnetar IT
About Magnetar IT
Magnetar IT was founded by Lewis Jenkins and Rafael, two people who love technology and enjoy creating and configuring bespoke IT. We founded Magnetar on the belief that every business with ambition and enterprise deserves affordable IT, customised to its workflow. We combine the best IT tools on the market with custom coding and cloud-based solutions to create genuinely bespoke systems — because a Magnetar solution is based on making the software fit the business, not the business fit the software.
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Date: September 15, 2026
Author: Rafael Macedo