Here’s a recent article from CNN Money on the value of web-based software for managing a business.

Life at Basecamp - six months in - Jul. 8, 2008.

As great as Basecamp is though (we use it), it’s not a magic bullet.

But as you grow, listen up: Expect to either make a major investment in developing your own financial and tracking software that works with Basecamp to make it do what you need (37Signals provides an open applications development toolset, so this is certainly possible), or budget for integrating another, more traditional, and more complex project-management system with Basecamp - or plan on abandoning the software entirely.

This is exactly what make custom software development so valuable. It’s a smart move to get started with a best-of-breed tool that you can use right out of the box. But, as you depend on it more and more you’ll realize that it’s taking over your business. You’ll be forced to shape more and more of your business practices around the way the software works. Ultimately, that’s not a good thing.

When best-of-breed either isn’t good enough or just starts to get in your way, that’s when you need to call a custom software developer and system integrator like Evans Codeworks. They can integrate the existing package into a system which keeps the best and none or some of the rest. The resulting solution leverages all of the good from your existing investment and gives you the freedom to improve on the parts that don’t work so well for you.