Toolbox

What we'd build your shortcuts with

Mostly free or low-cost tools, picked to fit the programs you already pay for. We start from yours, not ours, and we design around the people who'll use it every day.

Said plainly: Hollingsworks is in its first year. A product listed here is one we'd reach for, not one we've used for a client, and we're not partnered with any of them. Prices change, so we'd confirm current costs with you before anything is set up.

FreeNo cost
IncludedComes with something you likely pay for already
Free tierFree at small-office sizes, paid if you grow
Low costA few dollars a month, or pennies per use
PaidOnly when it's clearly worth it

Designed around your team first

Before anything gets built, we sketch the screens with the people who'll use them, and change the sketch until it feels obvious to them.

Figma Free tier: Clickable sketches you can try on your own phone or computer before a line of code exists.
Penpot Free: An open-source alternative to Figma, for anyone who'd rather not rely on a big vendor.
Paper and a whiteboard Free: Honestly, where most good shortcuts start: watching the job, then drawing the simpler version.

Small apps people actually like using

Sometimes the shortcut is a small app of its own: a check-in screen, a phone-friendly form for techs, a one-button tool at the front desk.

Web apps that install like phone apps Free: They open from a home-screen icon, work on any phone or computer, and skip the app stores entirely.
Flutter Free: One codebase for iPhone, Android and the web, when a real app store app makes sense.
App store accounts Low cost: Apple charges $99 a year, and Google Play is a one-time $25. They're only needed for a store app, and they'd be in your name.
Firebase or Supabase Free tier: Logins, a database and file storage, without running a server.
Firebase Hosting or Cloudflare Pages Free tier: Where the app lives. This site runs on Firebase Hosting.

Getting your programs to talk

Most business software has an official front door for other software, called an API. Using it usually costs nothing extra; it comes with the plan you already have.

QuickBooks Online and Xero Included: Customers, invoices and payments.
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace Included: Email, calendars, contacts, and the files in OneDrive, SharePoint and Drive.
The systems your trade runs on Included: Clio and PracticePanther for law, Jobber and Housecall Pro for the trades, HubSpot for sales. Some only open the door on higher plans, and dental practice software varies a lot; Open Dental has an API, and we'd check yours during the look-around.
Webhooks Free: A program taps us on the shoulder the moment something happens, like a job marked done or an invoice paid.

Ready-made connectors

For a simple hand-off between two programs, you often don't need custom code at all.

Microsoft Power Automate Included: The basic version comes with many Microsoft 365 business plans.
Google Apps Script Free: Code that lives inside Sheets, Gmail and Calendar, for offices on Google.
n8n Free: An open-source connector tool that's free to run yourself. We'd set it up in your name.
Make and Zapier Free tier: Thousands of ready-made connections. Fine for light use; they get pricey at volume, which is when we'd switch to one of the above.

Custom code, run cheaply

When the job needs matching, cleaning up or judgment calls, we write it: hand-built, documented and handed over.

Python and TypeScript Free: The workhorses for reading, matching and tidying data.
GitHub Free tier: A private home for the code, in your name, plus scheduled jobs (“every Friday at 5”) that fit in the free monthly minutes at small-office sizes.
Cloudflare Workers Free tier: Small always-on pieces, like catching a webhook, with a generous free allowance.

Forms, paperwork and texts

Intake forms, quotes, letters and reminders, done once and sent the same way every time.

Microsoft Forms or Google Forms Included: Quick intake forms that feed straight into everything else.
Tally Free tier: Nicer-looking forms, when they face your customers.
PDFs from a template Free: Quotes, letters and reports filled in from your data, looking the same every time.
Documenso Free: An open-source e-signature tool, as a cheaper stand-in for DocuSign when it fits.
Twilio Low cost: Text messages at about a cent or two each, plus a small monthly fee for the number and a one-time carrier registration.

Reports and screens

When a number needs to be seen, it goes where people already look.

Excel or Google Sheets Included: Reports that fill themselves in, in the spreadsheet you already open.
Looker Studio Free: Google's dashboard tool, for the rare report that should live on a screen.
Power BI Paid: Only if you're already on it. Sharing dashboards needs a paid license per person.

AI, where it earns its keep

About half of what we'd build wouldn't need it. When it helps, it's for reading messy emails, drafting a reply or summarizing notes, and a person checks the result before anything goes out.

Claude (Anthropic) or OpenAI's models Low cost: Paid per use through their business APIs, often a few dollars a month at small-office volumes. Both say API data isn't used to train their models by default, and we'd go over the terms with you first.

Keeping it safe, and yours

The part nobody sees, and the part that matters most.

Accounts in your name Free: Anything hosted lives in your accounts, so you can move it or shut it off without asking us.
Its own login, with only the access it needs Free: The shortcut never borrows someone's password, and you can switch it off in one place.
Bitwarden Free tier: A password manager for sharing keys and logins, never over email.
A log of every run Free: What happened, when, and anything that didn't go through.
Patient health information Paid: For dental offices, and anyone else covered by HIPAA, we'd only use services that will sign a Business Associate Agreement. Free tiers usually won't, so this is where paying is worth it.
The code, handed over Free: In a repository you own, with a written how-to your next IT person can follow.

Not sure what you run?

That's what the free conversation is for. Tell us the programs you use, and we'll say which of these would fit, and what they'd cost.

Get a free 30-minute conversation