Three businesses under one roof, finally on one system.

The operation before

The business is really three businesses under one roof, each with its own rhythm. There's party retail: physical items people buy, in-store and online. There's hire: things like LED numbers and helium tanks that go out on a deposit, come back on a set date, and have to be maintained and cross-checked as either out on hire or available. And there's party setups: balloon bouquets and custom arrangements, preordered and then collected or delivered on a specific date, with a genuinely custom workflow and a lot of moving parts.

But there was no system holding any of it together. Orders, especially the custom party setups, were tracked entirely by hand. Record-keeping, triage, and deciding which orders the team had to build on a given day all lived on paper and in people's heads. There was no reliable way to see what was due, what was being collected or delivered when, or what still needed to be made, so it couldn't be planned efficiently, and things slipped.

And without any backend inventory to lean on, hire was barely viable. With no way to track what was out and what was available, the business couldn't confidently offer or manage hire items on site, so a whole revenue line stayed small, held back by the lack of a system underneath it.

What we found

The real complexity wasn't three separate flows, it was that they share the same inventory, in more than one state at once. An LED number or a helium tank might be a hire item, a stand-alone product, and a component inside a made-to-order setup, sometimes all on the same weekend. With nothing tracking that, the moment an item was used in two ways it stopped being trackable at all, which is exactly why hire couldn't scale and setups couldn't be planned.

Understanding that manual party-setups workflow in detail, and building the backend inventory that can hold an item in several states at once, accurately, was the key. We built one system that runs all three flows against a single, honest view of stock, and turns the made-to-order process into something the team can actually see and prioritise.

What we built

One system, one source of truth, configured for all three flows, retail, hire, and custom setups.

• Three flows, one platform. Retail (in-store and online), hire (deposits, return dates, condition and availability), and made-to-order party setups, all in the same system.
• Backend inventory, tracked honestly. A single stock item is tracked across every use, for sale, out on hire, or consumed in a setup, so availability is always real, and hire can finally be offered with confidence.
• Online hire ordering. Hire is now bookable directly from the website, with orders falling straight into the system instead of being taken by hand.
• Party-setups production view. A clear day-by-day picture of what the team has to build, what's being collected or delivered and when, and what to prioritise.
• Website enquiries, captured and answered in one place. Every enquiry from the website arrives in the system with full details, and staff reply by SMS directly to the enquirer from within it, so no query is missed and more of them convert.
• Deposits, payments and returns. Hire deposits, payments, and return tracking handled in-system, with stock returned to availability automatically.
• Automated reminders and tracking. Reminders and status tracking across all three flows, without the manual chasing.

The result

Three flows that were never really connected now run off one honest source of truth.

• Three flows, one source of truth. Retail, hire, and custom setups finally in one place, with inventory that's accurate across all of them.
• Hire became a real channel. Backed by proper inventory tracking and bookable online, hire went from barely viable to a visible, more profitable line the business can actually grow.
• The made-to-order workflow is now trackable. The manual record-keeping and triage are gone; the team can see and prioritise the day's builds, collections, and deliveries at a glance.
• No missed enquiries. Website enquiries are captured and answered by SMS from inside the system, improving lead conversion.
• 20+ orders a day, in view. Clear daily visibility of everything in progress across all three flows.
• 3+ hours saved on the day. Time that used to go into manual record-keeping, handed back to the team.
• Fewer double-bookings and stock errors. Because availability is finally real across sale, hire, and setup use.