Client: Reynolds Blinds
Sector: Retail & manufacturing — made-to-measure blinds and shutters
What we did: The complete sales, quoting and production system — built by Flare Software and evolving for a decade
Made-to-measure retail is deceptively hard. Every blind Reynolds sells is a one-off: a product, in a fabric, at a width, with a control side, an operation type, maybe a motor — each choice changing the price. Multiply that by multiple showrooms, surveyors out measuring in customers' homes, and a production workshop waiting for accurate specifications, and a spreadsheet doesn't stand a chance.
What we built
A product configurator that knows the rules. Every product with its full option set — fabrics, operation, control side, motors, finials and more — priced from cost and retail matrices by width band. Salespeople pick options; the system prices the job, applies discount rules (with built-in ceilings, so enthusiasm never outruns margin), and produces a professional quotation.
Surveys on iPads — even offline. Surveyors measure up in customers' homes on iPads running FileMaker Go, with a purpose-built offline sync we developed so the day's surveys flow back to the server when they're back in signal. No paper measurements, no re-keying, no "is this a 7 or a 1?".
Survey to quote to order. Measurements become quotes, quotes become orders, and every sale carries its full history — multiple quotes per job, a chosen final quote, install costs and extras included.
Production, tracked. Orders move through a staged pipeline — deposit, confirmed, printed, dispatched, rectification, invoiced — with barcode-labelled production paperwork generated by the system and work-in-progress visible at every stage. Management gets salesperson and production cost reporting from the same data.
The finishing touch: Xero
The most recent addition — completed in 2026 — connects the whole pipeline to the accounts. Deposit invoices raise automatically when an order is placed, final invoices on completion, and because different showrooms bill through different companies, the integration routes each invoice to the correct Xero organisation automatically. It polls Xero for payments, reconciles them against orders, maps every product to the right nominal code, and logs every exchange for auditing.
The outcome
Reynolds have run their business through this system for around a decade — more than 10,000 sales and counting — from the first showroom conversation to the fitted blind and the reconciled invoice, with no retyping anywhere along the way.
"Over the past decade, Flare Software has taken the time to understand our business, our challenges and the way we work. Their approach has always been collaborative, practical and focused on finding solutions that genuinely meet our needs. Rather than simply providing software, they have worked alongside us to develop and improve systems that support our business as it has evolved."
— John Pickup, Reynolds Blinds
Technologies used
Claris FileMaker and FileMaker Go on iPad, bespoke offline synchronisation, barcode and label generation, staged production workflow, Xero API (OAuth 2.0, multi-organisation) with payment polling and reconciliation.
Sell configurable products?
If your products come in options, sizes and prices that a spreadsheet can't cope with — and your accounts should just happen — we've done this before.
Get in touch or call us on 0330 113 0958.