Eight questions to ask before you choose software for a service business

Software demos are designed to look good. Eight questions that are harder to answer well, and therefore more useful than a feature list.

1. Can I get my data out?

Ask for an export before you sign up, not after. A product that cannot export customers, bookings and invoices in an open format is a product you cannot leave. This question also tells you something about the company answering it.

2. Does it know my trade, or will I be typing my trade into notes?

A generic customer list can hold anything, which means it structures nothing. A clinic needs a chart. A law firm needs a matter. A gym needs a membership with a start and an end. If the fields your trade actually uses do not exist, they will end up in a free text box that no report can read.

3. What happens on the day someone quits?

Permissions are boring until they matter. You want to be able to remove a person and keep their work: their bookings, their notes, their signed documents. If access is shared through one login, you cannot do that.

4. Where does the money appear?

Follow one job through the product from first enquiry to paid invoice. Count how many times something is typed twice. That number, not the price, is what you will feel every week.

5. Can a customer do it themselves?

Every booking a customer makes without phoning you is time back. But test it on a phone, on a slow connection, without being logged in. That is how it will actually be used.

6. What does it do when the internet is bad?

Not a theoretical question if your work happens in basements, farms, warehouses or moving vehicles. Find out what fails and whether it fails safely.

7. Who is responsible for the personal data?

If you hold health notes, identity documents or records about children, you are responsible for them, and the platform is processing them on your behalf. Ask where they are stored, how long they are kept, who can see them, and what happens when you close the account. Get the answer in writing.

8. What is the smallest useful first step?

Be suspicious of any plan that requires migrating everything before anything works. A good first step delivers one visible improvement within a week — the booking page, or the invoice, or the customer list — and does not require the rest to be finished first.

A note on price

Compare the total, not the headline. Per user pricing changes meaning the day you hire. Free plans differ enormously: some are trials with a countdown, some are real plans with limits. Read which one you are getting.