Straight answers, and the thinking behind them.

What I build with beside FileMaker is the open web: common pieces you can look inside, add to or replace, with no platform contract. When I add to your FileMaker system, you don't take on a new vendor; you get new features on the system you already trust. That's why my recommendation to stay is worth something: I could just as easily say leave.

Everything below flows from that.

How it starts

Talk, assess, quote. Each step has a set limit, its price is in writing before it starts, and it makes the next step safer.

Free 30-minute triage call

An honest read on your situation, with no slide deck and no sales push. I'll tell you what I think — including "you don't need me yet" or "this isn't a fit" when either is true.

Text me: 760-889-9299 · Email: rene@filemakercoder.com

System Assessment — $250 or $500

About a week, $250 or $500 depending on the size of the system. I go through the whole system, including FileMaker's full design report (the DDR), and talk with whoever knows it best. You get a written map of your system and your choices, in your name, laid out like a morning brief. You can use it with any developer, including one who isn't me. How it goes, step by step.

• What you have — what's actually running (files, servers, integrations, hosting, licenses) and whose name each account is in
• What's fragile and what's fine — who could take over, what could break, hosting, and where costs could jump, each rated
• Stay — what it takes to keep the system healthy for the next three to five years
• Build beside it — where an extension or integration would pay for itself
• Leave slowly — what a staged exit would involve, honestly, if it ever comes to that

If you go ahead within 60 days, the full fee comes off the first work from the quote.

The quote — three options

Written from what the assessment found: good, better and best, each with what's included and what it costs, worked out from the hours I expect the work to take. Blockers are named plainly, and where one addition would make an option more complete, I say so. Then you decide.

Stewardship retainer

Ongoing care of a FileMaker system I've assessed or built. One monthly rate, quoted for your system, covers routine work; larger projects are quoted separately. Included every month:

• Two hours of hands-on work — fixes, tweaks, small changes, or a question answered with a working fix instead of an email. Rolls over one month if unused.
• Priority response — issues affecting daily operations get a same-business-day reply and a plan; non-priority requests inside two business days. Non-retainer clients queue behind retainer work.
• One-click problem reports — a small app on your Macs: click it, mark up the screen, say what's wrong, send. I get the screenshot with the exact FileMaker file, layout and record, so a fix starts from facts instead of "something's wrong on the invoice screen."
• A daily brief — one morning email with what changed overnight and what's waiting on you. I watch that it arrives every day and fix it when it doesn't. See an example.
• Up to two live boards — screens that answer a daily question without anyone having to ask, like where the trucks are or what goes out today, on a shop TV, a desk or a phone. I keep them running. See examples.
• A live system map, inside your own FileMaker system — kept current, showing every moving piece: files, servers, integrations, scheduled jobs, hosting, licenses and their renewal dates, credentials, and where each one lives. Built in the first month and updated as things change, with a short report filed each month: what changed, what I touched, what to watch next. If I get hit by a bus, your next developer starts from this instead of from scratch.
• Expiry warnings — every license, security certificate and domain on the system map carries its expiry date, and I get a warning 30 days ahead. You hear about it from me, not from a system that stopped working.
• A quarterly written review — a real document, not a checklist. What changed, what broke, what the daily watch caught, what's aging, what's worth doing next, what to leave alone. Sent as a PDF you can forward to a partner or a board.
• A quarterly backup test — every three months, we prove a backup actually restores and the system actually comes up on it. The result is filed in your system map. Most businesses discover their backups don't work at the worst possible moment. You won't.

Building the connection to your system, the brief itself, or a board is quoted separately. If the brief or a board breaks on my side, the fix is on me. If it breaks because something changed on yours, like a renamed field or a new server, the repair comes out of the two included hours. Work beyond those hours bills at the hourly rate in your agreement. Twelve-month initial term; month-to-month after year one.

Project engagements

Extensions, migrations, and other scoped builds are quoted from the assessment, as good, better and best options — never open-ended estimates. A fixed price where the work can be pinned down; where it can't, hourly up to a cap. You always know the most it can cost before work begins.

Every project starts with a written scope, timeline, and price. Nothing begins without your signature on that document.

Hourly consulting

For work that doesn't fit a package or retainer — one-off fixes, exploratory questions, or jobs too small for a written quote. One-hour minimum, billed weekly, at a rate that's in writing before any work starts.

Retainer clients get priority scheduling; hourly work is fit in around retainer commitments. After-hours and emergency work is billed at premium rates, quoted before work begins.

What I don't do

• Open-ended estimates. Every engagement has a defined ceiling before it starts.
• Panic-sell migrations. If staying serves the business, the recommendation is stay.
• Automatic sales emails. You won't get a string of follow-up emails, a booking link, or a form to fill out. You text or email me, and I answer.
• Surprise pricing. Every price is in writing before the work starts.