An example use case showing the shape and economics of a typical Big Helpers build for an Indian SME drowning in spreadsheet sales tracking.
Note: this is an example use case illustrating a typical Big Helpers engagement of this shape — not a named client. Real client names and numbers are kept private.
An illustrative example: a 60-person FMCG distribution business in Aurangabad covering 7 districts of Maharashtra was managing roughly 480 active dealer accounts and 1,200 monthly leads. The setup was 6 separate Excel files emailed daily between 4 sales executives, 2 office staff, and the owner — a sales pipeline file, a dealer credit file, an open-orders file, a delivery-status file, a complaints log, and a daily DSR (Daily Sales Report) consolidated by hand each evening. Tally Prime ran on the back-office computer for accounting. WhatsApp groups carried order placement and complaint resolution. The owner was the de-facto database — every reconciliation question routed through him.
Three problems compounded: (1) the same dealer order was being typed 4 times across the day (WhatsApp -> sales exec's Excel -> office consolidation Excel -> Tally invoice -> delivery status Excel), with a typing error rate of around 5-7% causing wrong-quantity dispatches and customer complaints; (2) the owner had no real-time view — "how are we tracking against the monthly target?" needed someone to spend 90 minutes opening 4 files; (3) when a sales executive resigned, all his lead history and dealer notes lived on his personal phone and laptop, and walked out with him. Two such exits in 18 months had cost roughly ₹6-9L in lost recurring orders. The owner had tried Zoho CRM Plus a year earlier — bought 12 seats at ₹2.6L/year, but the 4 sales execs reverted to Excel within 6 weeks because Zoho's UI didn't fit how they actually worked their territories.
Tell us your team size, customer count, and the 3 Excel files that hurt most. We send back a sketch of what a custom CRM would look like for you, what it would cost to build, and how we'd phase the rollout. Free, no sales call required.
We built a custom CRM in 8 weeks tailored to the firm's exact territory + dealer + credit workflow. The customer-facing layer was a simple PWA the field sales executives could use on their existing Android phones — capture an order in 40 seconds with auto-pulled dealer credit limit and last-3-orders, with the order flowing through to Tally as a draft invoice the office could approve in one click. Office layer handled dispatch status, complaint logging, and credit decisions. Owner cockpit dashboard answered the 8 questions that actually mattered: target vs achievement (today / week / month), dealers at credit limit, dealers below 70% of their 90-day average, top complaints by SKU, sales rep pipeline conversion, dispatch-pending orders aging, collection due aging, and daily revenue + GST. Stack: Laravel (PHP 8.2) + PostgreSQL + a HTMX + Alpine.js front-end, deployed on the firm's existing DigitalOcean droplet. Source code in their GitHub from the first commit.
Within 90 days of go-live, the 6 Excel files were retired entirely. The 4 sales executives adopted the PWA fully — adoption was driven by it being faster than Excel, not enforced by management. Data-entry errors dropped sharply (estimate ~85% reduction in wrong-quantity dispatches). The owner stopped opening Excel files for daily/weekly/monthly target tracking — the cockpit dashboard answered every question in under 30 seconds. When the next sales executive transition happened in month 7, every dealer note, every active conversation and every credit history stayed inside the system. Year-1 spend: ₹3.2L (build) + ₹54K (hosting + small changes) = ₹3.74L vs the ₹2.6L that would have been Zoho year 2 + the ~₹4-5L of lost-order risk. Year 2 onward: ₹54K vs ₹2.6L+. Payback inside year two on cash, inside year one if you count the avoided sales-rep-exit risk.
It is an example use case representative of typical Big Helpers builds for FMCG and retail distribution SMEs in tier-2 cities. Specific client names and exact numbers are kept private. The shape, technical choices and rough economics are accurate to real engagements of this size.
Yes, and it's cheaper. A 15-person version drops to ₹1.4-1.8L because we skip the multi-territory + multi-rep complexity. The economics still work as long as you have at least 2 sales reps and ~50+ active customer accounts.
Nothing — Tally remains the system of record for accounting. The CRM creates draft invoices in Tally; your accountant approves them in Tally as today. The CRM never overwrites Tally; it only adds and reads. Most clients keep their existing Tally workflow completely intact.
Yes — both have public APIs we connect to. Leads land in the CRM queue automatically, with auto-assignment by territory. Adds about ₹15-25K and 1 week to the build.
Roughly ₹4,000-7,500/month for hosting + small fixes, or ₹0 if you self-manage on your own VPS. We hand over source code on day-1 of go-live, so any local PHP/Laravel developer can extend it. Most clients keep us on a 4-8 hour/month retainer for 6-12 months then move to ad-hoc.
Yes — that's expected. After 30-day handholding, additional features are quoted as small fixed-price modules (typically ₹15-60K per feature). Average client adds 3-6 features in year one as they discover what they actually want.
Talk to a senior engineer in 24 hours — no juniors, no sales reps, no jargon. Just a clear scope, an honest estimate, and a build plan.