Web apps and tools that do the job properly.

The spreadsheet doing a job it was never meant to do.

Most organisations run on software that nearly fits, and people absorb the gap by hand. Exports into spreadsheets, rekeying between systems, a report someone assembles every month, a process that only works because one person remembers the steps.

Those hours never appear on any budget line, which is exactly why they never get fixed. More on that here.

Built for one club, rather than shared with a hundred.

Gyms, studios, salons and clubs mostly rent their membership software from a company that also serves hotels and franchise chains. It works, up to a point. The gaps show in the parts that are specific to you, and in one detail owners rarely think about until it bites, which is whose name appears on the member’s bank statement when the Direct Debit is collected. If it is the software company’s name, some members will not recognise it, and a few of those will ring their bank and call it fraud.

We build the whole thing in the club’s own name instead. Members get a web app they add to their home screen, with a one-time entry code that dies the moment it is scanned, bookings, the bar tab and a loyalty card. The desk gets the door, payments, bookings, the order queue and member messages on one screen. Payments run through a provider like Stripe in the club’s name, and the member database belongs to the club, so it can be exported any day of the week without asking us.

You get to try it before you commit to it. We build the working prototype first and put it online with its own demo data, so an owner can press every button on their own phone. Scan the entry code, order a coffee, book an induction, log a lift and watch it appear on the desk screen for a coach to verify. Nothing is wired to a bank or a door reader at that stage, which is rather the point. Deciding from a thing you have used beats deciding from a slide deck. Metroflex London is the first gym on it, and the prototype is here to try.

The money side is a build fee, then hosting and the payment provider’s cut per transaction. No per-member licence, and the figures are written down before anything is signed. One thing worth saying plainly: Direct Debit mandates sit with whoever collects the money, so moving collector later means your members sign new mandates. That is as true of us as it is of whatever you are on now, and it is a reason to pick carefully at the start rather than a reason to pick us.

Smaller than you think, sooner than you expect.

The instinct is to specify a big system. Usually the right answer is a focused tool that does the one painful thing well and leaves everything else alone. Smaller is cheaper, faster and far more likely to be used.

Not sure whether you need this or a website? Here is how to tell.