We build and rebuild the software businesses in the North West depend on — and we write it down as we go, so the next person can read it. Whether that person works for us is up to you.
Repositories, credentials and diagrams are in your name from the first week. We hold no keys you cannot revoke.
The engineer who sits with you at the start is the engineer who writes the code. Nothing is thrown over a wall.
We price a stage, not a wish. Where we misjudge the effort inside a quoted stage, that cost is ours.
Every architectural choice gets a short written note — what we picked, and what we rejected to pick it.
(02) Who we are
A small software studio in Ribbleton, working with firms across Lancashire and the wider North West.
In 2019 our first contract was a stock system at a manufacturer near Chorley. It had been written by an employee who had left four years earlier. There was no documentation, and one person on site half-remembered the login.
We spent eleven weeks reading it before we changed a single line. The client thought that was slow. It was — and it is also the reason the migration took four months instead of the two years the last quote had promised.
That job set the rule we still work to. Nothing leaves here that a stranger cannot pick up and understand. Seven of us work that way now, on a handful of engagements at a time.
The company behind the name is Dahlia Security Innovation Ltd.
Most of our industry sells the rewrite. We usually argue against one: a rewrite discards every bug you have already found and paid to find. And we do not take on work we are not allowed to document — if the brief needs someone to start on Monday and ask questions later, we are the wrong firm.
(03) Engagements & rates
Tick anything relevant and it carries down to the enquiry form. Nothing here commits you to the next stage.
Two weeks reading your systems and sitting with the people who use them daily. You leave with a written architecture, a ranked risk list and a fixed price for the build. Take it elsewhere if you'd rather.
Portals, internal tools, dashboards — the software your business runs on and cannot buy off a shelf. Built on unfashionable, well-supported technology that will still be maintained in ten years.
Software written by someone who has gone. We read it, document what it actually does, then move it somewhere maintainable in stages — with the old system running the whole time.
Getting your accounts package, your CRM and your warehouse to agree on the same numbers, on the same morning.
Patching, monitoring and the steady drip of small changes. A named engineer who already knows the system, and a reply inside one working day.
For buyers, boards and lenders: a plain read on a codebase and the team around it, written for people who do not write code. Delivered before you sign, not after.
Prices are a guide and are confirmed after discovery. All figures exclude VAT. Day rate for work outside these shapes: £780.
(04) How we work
You can stop after any one of them and keep everything produced up to that point.
Before a line is written we read what exists and talk to whoever touches it daily. The people on the floor know things the specification does not.
One page. Boxes, arrows, the order things happen in. If we cannot draw it, we do not yet understand it, and we say so.
Each stage ships and gets used by real people. Nothing waits behind a launch date six months out.
Repositories, runbooks, credentials, and an afternoon with your team. Keeping us on afterwards becomes a decision rather than a dependency.
(05) Next step
A first call runs about an hour, costs nothing, and often ends with us saying the thing is not worth building yet. You will speak to the person who would do the work.
(06) Enquiries
We answer enquiries ourselves, usually the same working day. There is no sales team to get past.
Monday to Friday, 9am – 5.30pm
Last updated: 24 August 2026
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Last updated: 24 August 2026
This website is operated by Dahlia Security Innovation Ltd, a company registered in England & Wales under company number 17301708, whose registered office is 3 Coopers Fold, Ribbleton, Preston, PR2 6HW ("we", "us"). Contact: [email protected], +44 7473 989 035. These terms govern your use of this website and any enquiry you make through it.
We provide software development services to businesses: discovery and technical scoping, bespoke web application development, legacy system migration, systems integration, ongoing support and maintenance, and technical due diligence.
The prices on this website are indicative starting figures, exclude VAT, and are not an offer capable of acceptance. A binding price is given only in a written proposal following a discovery or scoping conversation. Written quotations remain valid for 30 days from the date of issue, after which we may re-quote.
Nothing is ordered or paid for on this website. You contact us by form, email or telephone; we discuss the work; we issue a written proposal setting out scope, stages, price and timescales. A contract comes into existence only when you accept that proposal in writing.
Work is invoiced in stages as set out in the accepted proposal. Invoices are payable within 14 days of the invoice date unless the proposal states otherwise, by bank transfer to the account named on the invoice. We may charge statutory interest on late payment under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.
Each accepted proposal states the stages of work and the working days allowed for each. Timescales assume you provide access, information, decisions and review feedback within the periods set out in that proposal; where they are delayed, the affected dates move by the same period. If we expect to miss an agreed date for a reason of our own, we tell you as soon as we know and agree a revised date with you in writing. Deliverables are handed over electronically — repository access, credentials and written documentation.
Either party may end an engagement in writing on 30 days' notice. On termination you pay for work completed and committed up to the end of the notice period, and we hand over everything produced to that point. Changes to an agreed scope are quoted separately before they are carried out.
Our services are supplied to businesses. If you contract with us as a consumer, you have the right to cancel within 14 days of the contract being formed under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. Where you ask us to begin work within that period, you remain liable for the value of the work performed before you cancel.
Because work is invoiced in stages after it has been carried out, refunds arise only where you have paid in advance. Where you cancel a stage you have paid for and we have not yet started it, we refund that payment in full. Where we have started it, we refund the balance of the payment less the value of the work performed, and hand over that work. Where a deliverable does not conform to the accepted proposal, we correct it at our cost; if we cannot correct it within a reasonable time, we refund what you paid for that deliverable. Refunds are made to the account the payment came from within 14 days of the amount being agreed. Nothing here limits the statutory remedies available to a consumer under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
On payment of all sums due for a stage, the intellectual property in the deliverables of that stage passes to you. We retain ownership of our pre-existing tools, libraries and know-how, and grant you a perpetual licence to use them as embedded in the deliverables. The content and design of this website remain ours.
We do not exclude liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded. Subject to that, our total liability arising out of an engagement is limited to the fees paid under it, and we are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business or indirect losses. Nothing on this website is advice; it is general information about our services.
Please raise any complaint with us in the first instance by emailing [email protected]. We acknowledge complaints within five working days and aim to resolve them within 20. If we cannot, the parties will attempt mediation before issuing proceedings.
These terms and any dispute arising out of them are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.
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