Introducing Backbone

Most service businesses run on a stack of tools that don't talk to each other: a project tracker, a time sheet, an expense app, a CRM, and a leave calendar, each with its own login and its own version of the truth. Backbone is what happens when those five things share one set of projects, one set of clients, and one set of people.

Why we built it

We kept seeing the same pattern at consultancies and agencies: someone reconciles logged hours against a project budget by hand at the end of the month, because the time-tracking tool and the project tracker don't share data. Backbone starts from the other direction — time, projects, expenses, sales, and leave are modules on top of the same records, not separate apps stitched together with exports.

What's in it today

• Projects — plan the work and see health roll up from real activity.
• Time tracking — log hours against the projects you're actually on.
• Resource planning — see who's allocated to what, and where capacity runs out.
• Sales — track the pipeline from lead to signed deal.
• Expenses — submit, approve, and reimburse without a paper trail.
• Leave — request and approve time off, visible against the plan.

Each organisation turns on the modules it needs. Role permissions decide who sees what inside them.

What's next

We're writing more about how each module works in the docs, and we'll use this news section for anything worth a longer explanation than a changelog entry.