What Modules Does an SME Back-Office System Typically Include?

The most common modules are CRM (customer records and quotation management), stock and warehouse management, appointment or service booking, accounting and document generation (invoices, receipts, purchase orders), HR and leave management, and a dashboard summarising key metrics. Most businesses do not need all of these from day one — the starting set is based on which workflows consume the most time through manual repetition.

How Much Does a Custom Back-Office System Cost?

TumWebSME's System package starts at ฿249,000 (one-time payment), which covers the full process from requirements analysis through build, testing, and handover training. The final price depends on the scope defined in the SRS (Software Requirements Specification) — more modules and more complex logic increase the price. This figure is accurate as of 16 September 2026; verify current pricing directly before making a decision.

Why Does a Back-Office System Cost More Than a Regular Website?

A website displays information for people to read. A back-office system requires a real database designed for operational accuracy, workflows that enforce business rules, user permission levels, and the kind of error-handling where a mistake has financial consequences. Every module added and every permission level defined is additional design and development work. The price reflects the complexity of the logic, not just the number of screens.

What Makes a Back-Office System Price Go Up or Down?

The main factors are: the number of modules required, the complexity of the business logic within each module (simple CRUD versus multi-condition approval flows), the number of user permission levels, integrations required with existing systems (POS, LINE, payment gateways), and the volume of historical data that needs to be migrated into the new system. Each of these is scoped and quoted individually.

My Budget Is Below ฿249,000. Can I Still Get Started?

Yes, if your requirements are specific enough to fit a smaller scope. The e-commerce website package starting at ฿199,000 already includes order management and basic stock tracking as part of the standard build — which effectively gives you a partial back-office without starting from the full System package. The right starting point depends on what your most urgent operational problem actually is.

How Long Does a Back-Office System Build Take, and Who Maintains It Afterward?

Most builds take 60–90 days depending on scope complexity. After delivery, a 3-month free bug fix period is included. For ongoing server maintenance, security patching, and feature additions after that window, a Maintenance Agreement (MA) is available as a separate optional arrangement.

How Much Does a Custom System Cost? A Module-by-Module Look Inside an SME Back-Office System Before You See a Quote

Imagine you're on a car website configuring a new model. You start by selecting the base trim, and the price shown isn't the final one — scroll down and you'll find a list of optional add-ons to check: leather seats, a sunroof, rear sensors. Every box you tick moves the price up in real time. You know exactly what you're paying for. There's no guesswork, no taking the salesperson's word for it.

When business owners are told "it's time to build a system," the mental image is often the opposite: a single black box that does everything, with a lump-sum price that appears from nowhere. In reality, it's much closer to the car configurator. A back-office system is a set of modules assembled together according to each business's actual workflow. Some modules are essential for nearly every business. Others are only relevant to specific types of operations. And every module you add is what shows up as a line in the actual quote. This article opens each box one by one, with the real prices we have set today, so you can read a quote from any development team — not just ours.

Before we open the boxes, take three minutes to map out your own business first. Walk through the steps from the moment a customer contacts you to the moment money lands in your account, and ask yourself which steps require you to enter the same piece of information in more than one place — like noting an order in LINE and then re-entering it in a stock notebook, or building a quote by duplicating an old file and changing numbers line by line. Every point like that you find is one module your business likely needs. The more you count, the larger the right system for you tends to be. If you're not yet sure whether your business has reached that point, I wrote about the clearer warning signs in a previous article — worth reading alongside what your business looks like right now.

What's Inside the Back-Office Box?

From the real projects our team has built for clients — from clinic appointment and management systems that store patient records, cut stock in real time, and show different screens to receptionists versus doctors, to back-end systems for gaming apps that manage player data, gameplay statistics, and in-game items with real-time dashboards — the modules that appear repeatedly in Thai SME business problems tend to fall into a few categories.

Customer Data and Quoting (CRM)

This module remembers where each conversation with a customer left off, what they've bought before, and lets you generate a quote in a few clicks — instead of duplicating an old file and editing numbers line by line, as most businesses do today. It's the module that virtually every type of business we talk to needs, whether they sell products or services.

Inventory and Warehouse Management

Stock-in and stock-out visible in real time, with automatic deduction the moment a sale is made. No more counting stock at month-end and finding the numbers don't match reality. This module is essential for businesses with physical products; service-only businesses like agencies or consultancies can typically skip it.

Appointment and Booking

Customers book themselves, reschedule themselves, and receive automatic reminders — so your team doesn't spend the day fielding booking calls. This matters a great deal for businesses that sell time: clinics, barbershops, restaurants that take reservations. For a manufacturing plant with no concept of customer queues, it's barely relevant.

Accounting and Documents

Tax invoices, income and expenses, summary reports — all in one system instead of scattered across multiple Excel files in multiple versions managed by multiple people. Many businesses choose to connect this section to an accounting program they already use rather than building it from scratch, which is more of an integration task than building a new module.

HR and People Management

Payroll calculation, leave management, application screening. This becomes more meaningful as headcount grows, but for businesses with a small team it's usually not the most worthwhile place to invest before other modules.

Overview Dashboard

Pulls data from every module into one screen. Open it in the morning and immediately know what needs attention today — no more waiting for a month-end summary report. This is another module that businesses of almost any size want; the complexity of the dashboard just depends on how many modules there are to pull data from.

Beyond these main categories, there are also specialist modules found only in specific business models — such as a Marketplace system for businesses that want to act as a platform connecting buyers and sellers, or an auction system for businesses that sell through competitive bidding. These aren't something a typical business needs, but when that use case comes up, they become non-negotiable.

Which Modules Almost Every Business Needs vs. Which Are Truly Optional

From our team's past projects, the two categories that nearly every business we speak to requires are CRM / quoting and the overview dashboard, because these are the two pain points owners feel most acutely when a business starts growing beyond what one person can oversee. The rest depend purely on the business model. Restaurants and clinics genuinely need the booking system; manufacturing plants almost never touch it. Businesses with physical goods depend on inventory; service businesses may never need it at all. There's no rule that every business needs every box described here — and that's precisely why the final price differs from business to business.

Real Prices We Have Set Today (Checked 16 September 2026)

The starting prices across all packages we currently offer range from ฿79,000 to ฿249,000, paid as a one-time fee. Every figure is a starting price; the final number depends on the agreed scope. But I want to be direct about this first: the two ends of that range are not the same kind of system.

The lower end at ฿79,000 is a two-page company website focused on credibility and SEO — it doesn't include a back-office system for running business operations. Moving up to the Full Business Website package (starting at ฿119,000) and the Online Store package (starting at ฿199,000), back-end functionality begins to come into the picture — particularly the online store package, which includes order management, inventory, and discount coupons within that price. For a fully custom back-office system with a database and workflow designed from the ground up specifically for your business — unlimited pages or features, not bound by a fixed package — we call this the System package, starting at ฿249,000.

That's the direct answer to the most common question: "How much does a custom system cost?" The starting figure is ฿249,000 if your goal is a back-office system designed end-to-end. But if what you actually need is just an order and inventory system tied to an online store, you may not need to reach that number at all.

What's included in the System package's starting price: business requirements analysis, a specification document that locks scope and price from the outset (called an SRS), UI/UX design, development and testing, team training until the system is comfortable to use, and post-delivery support. What's not included: annual server and domain costs, and features outside the scope agreed in that document. All figures are the publicly listed prices on our package page at the time of checking. When you request an actual quote, confirm the tax terms with the team.

The timeline is equally straightforward. Most system projects take 60 to 90 days from kickoff to delivery. Faster or slower depends on the complexity of scope agreed in the SRS. Payment isn't required as one lump sum on day one — we split it into milestone-based installments tied to actual progress. If a milestone isn't completed as agreed, that installment isn't due yet. If you'd like to understand how an SRS document actually prevents budget overruns, read more at What Is an SRS? The Blueprint That Keeps Your Project Budget in Check. And if you want to see real examples of systems we've built for clients along with full package details, visit our Custom Software and Business System Development page.

What Moves the Number Up or Down from ฿249,000

Scope is the only variable that determines the final price — not an arbitrary number any company wants to set. When talking to any development team, check how many of these variables your project touches:

Number of modules: Do you need one module or several running together — like accounting, inventory, and booking all in one project? More modules mean more time to design and build, proportionally.
Complexity of logic within each module: Pricing formulas tied to multiple conditions simultaneously, multi-level approval workflows, or discounts that vary by individual customer all add development and testing time.
Number of user roles: If a receptionist sees one screen and a manager sees another, each role needs to be designed and tested separately — like the clinic system we built where the receptionist and examining doctor used completely different interfaces.
Integration with existing systems: If your business already has a point-of-sale system or accounting software and you need the new system to communicate with it without duplicate entry, that's a separate estimation task. We've written about this in detail at Connecting a Point-of-Sale System to Your Website Without Retyping Data
Old data migration: If you have years of customer data or stock records sitting in Excel, migrating that data accurately and completely is work that needs to be counted in the scope from the start — not a cost that appears later as a surprise.

Why Not Just Use Off-the-Shelf Software That Costs Far Less?

It's a question I get often, and I'll answer directly: you're asking the right thing. If your business has fairly standard workflows and nothing that needs to be highly specific, an off-the-shelf monthly subscription is genuinely the best value option right now. There's no reason to pay a large one-time sum for something you don't need yet. I won't argue against that.

The point where custom development starts to make more sense is when a business has workflows that don't fit any standard mold — like a pricing formula tied to multiple simultaneous conditions, or the need to connect data across several existing systems into one coherent view. That's the point where off-the-shelf software tends to force the business to adapt to the software's feature set, rather than having a system designed around the way the business actually operates.

Why Documenting Your Workflow Today Pays Off Later

The most time-consuming part of a system project isn't writing code — it's the phase where the development team has to ask: "How does your business actually work right now?" Because any team needs to understand the real workflow before they can design the right system. If you start writing down your current processes today — how orders are received, how discounts are approved, how month-end is closed — the requirements gathering and SRS phase will go significantly faster. The more clearly you understand your own operations, the more precisely the system can be designed around them, and the less time you'll spend fixing things afterward, which is almost always more expensive than getting it right the first time.

If You're Not Ready to Build Everything at Once, Where to Start

There's no requirement to build every module in the first project. Pick the single biggest pain point from the three-minute self-survey at the start of this article and start there. A custom system designed with a solid structure from the outset can have new modules added later without tearing out what's already built — that's a key difference from off-the-shelf software, which typically doesn't allow you to extend beyond its predefined boundaries. If you want to see what a fully assembled system looks like in practice, read the KMITL case study at Deep Dive: TumWebSME x KMITL

A 30-Day Plan Before Talking to Any Development Team

Week 1 — Write down the real process: Trace the workflow from the moment a customer contacts you to the moment money lands in your account. Write it as the steps you actually take each day, not how it theoretically should work.
Week 2 — Circle the duplicates: From the workflow you wrote down, circle every point where you have to enter the same piece of information in more than one place. That list is your initial module inventory.
Week 3 — Separate must-haves from nice-to-haves: From that list, circle only the points where the business genuinely stumbles every week — those are version one. The rest become phase two.
Week 4 — Request quotes: Take that list to a development team — ours or anyone else's — and ask for an SRS document that locks scope and price before any work begins.

How to Measure Whether It Was Worth It

After the system goes live, the number to watch isn't just whether the interface looks good or feels easy to use — it's the time that disappears from duplicate data entry each week. Time your team on the same tasks before and after the system: how long it takes to produce one quote, or how long it takes to close the month-end stock count. If those numbers drop noticeably, that's the sign the investment is starting to pay for itself.

Closing Thoughts

A back-office system is built from multiple modules selected according to a business's actual workflow. Every module added has a reason that explains why the quote looks the way it does. If you've read this far and are starting to see which modules your business likely needs, feel free to reach out and tell us where you're currently stuck — and we'll help assess which part to start with first, given your actual budget and business situation.