About us
More Input is a small software house based in Manchester. Since 1997 we've designed, built and looked after bespoke software for businesses, schools and charities, and some of our clients have been with us for more than twenty years.
Who you'll work with
More Input was founded by Martin Ross, who has been writing business software since the 1990s and still does. We're a small team of experienced developers, several of whom have worked with us for over a decade.
Being small is deliberate. You talk directly to the people who design and build your system, not to an account manager, and the people who built it are the ones who look after it afterwards.
What we believe
- Software should fit the business, not the other way round.
- Fit in with how you work. Some clients hand us a detailed specification; others want us to watch how their staff work and talk ideas through with them. We're happy either way.
- Every piece of work should pay for itself. We'd rather do the small change that saves an hour a day than the big one that looks impressive.
- Honest advice first: sometimes the answer is an off-the-shelf product, and we'll say so.
- Build to last: clear code, automated tests and documentation, so a system can outlive any one developer.
- Improve in steps, keeping the business running, rather than starting again from scratch.
- Plain English. You shouldn't need to be technical to understand what you're getting.
Our story
The technology has changed beyond recognition since 1997; the approach hasn't. Understand the business, build something that fits, and keep it working.
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1997
Our first client
A company-formation agent. The first system was a small desktop program, and we worked together for 25 years, until the business closed.
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Late 1990s
KosherPages
An online directory of businesses for the local Jewish community, written in PHP.
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2001
Legal costs
The start of a 25-year (and counting) relationship with a legal-costs firm.
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Early 2000s
PropertyManager
A property management system for estate agents, used by several firms, which ran reliably for many years with very little maintenance.
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Early 2000s
Medico-legal marketplace
Portals connecting solicitors with medical experts, which we built and supported until the agency closed in 2020.
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2006
School finance
A school finance and Gift Aid system, and the start of 20 years working with the school.
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2006 – 2010
Our .NET era begins
We rebuilt the company-formation back office with direct Companies House filing, rebuilt the medico-legal marketplace, and built a membership system for a youth sports organisation and a telecoms retailer's point-of-sale and billing platform. Our in-house framework, still at the heart of our systems today, dates from this time.
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2012 – 2022
Growing range
A costs-budgeting tool for litigation, a ground-rent management system, a pension administrator's CRM, schools, charities and more.
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2013
Community mapping
Mapping for a community eruv, later expanded into a full status and notification system.
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2013
Online retail
The start of our work with a UK online retailer. Our system is now the core of the business.
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2023
Energy
A prepayment energy platform for rented properties.
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2026
Modernisation and AI
Our own software for managing special educational needs in schools (in progress). A half-million-line system converted to modern technology, with the business trading throughout. AI-assisted development on our larger projects.
How we work
We take on code written by others, we document what we build, and we use modern tools, including AI-assisted development with human review, to deliver faster without cutting corners.
Many of our systems have been in use for well over a decade. We'd like yours to be one of them.
Tell us what's slowing your business down.
We'll tell you honestly whether bespoke software is the answer.