Two ways to hire DArnTech: replace one system, or run your whole shop.
Either way, you own the result and you choose how much of it you want in your hands. Learn every layer, or hand it off and forget it — we take the hard part, and what we hand back keeps working without you standing over it. Your data stays in your office: open-source software on infrastructure you control, no monthly ransom, no lock-in.
Not sure which layer you need? Start with a working session. Your session fee credits toward your Layer 1 fixed price or your Layer 2 engagement.
How DArnTech works
- You own it. Open-source software on infrastructure you control — your data, your subdomain, full export anytime, no lock-in. Nothing is locked behind me: every credential and every config is yours from day one.
- You set the dial. Some customers want to learn the whole stack; most want it handled. Both are the job. The hard part — the migration, the proof, the infrastructure — is mine either way. How much of the rest you hold is up to you, and you can change your mind later.
- Already proven. Most of what I deploy already runs in my own production stack, day in and day out. You're hiring delivery of a working pattern, not first-time discovery.
- Reachable after the build. The engagement is the hands-on part; then the system fades into the background. When you do want something — a change, a question, a new idea — you call the engineer who built it. Not a support queue, not a project manager.
One system, one fixed price, one proof that the move worked. A vendor you pay every month gets replaced by software you own, running on your own hardware, with your history intact. People arrive at this page two ways:
The vendor is killing software you own on a date they picked. Sage stopped selling perpetual Sage 50 licenses in 2023 and now retires versions on a rolling clock; Thomson Reuters retires FileCabinet CS in December 2027. You didn't choose to move — the date was chosen for you. The move you do choose is the one below: to software with no expiration date, because there's no license to expire.
Nothing is shutting down — the bill went up. Mindbody-class booking suites, where operators publicly report monthly bills climbing from $80 to $469, are the textbook case. You can leave whenever you want; what you're missing is a landing spot with a fixed price on it. That's what a Layer 1 replacement is.
darnbooks · QuickBooks Desktop → ERPNext
Books moved to the penny.
The trade suite above runs a front office. This is for the business behind it: years of history in QuickBooks Desktop, and an accounting platform you rent by the month. We move the company file into ERPNext, a full open-source ERP (accounting, inventory, projects, CRM) running on your own server, and an independent checker proves the books survived the trip.
The proof runs on a synthetic company built to exercise real migration hazards: partial payments, credit memos, sales tax, near-duplicate vendor names. No client data. Every artifact, down to the raw qbXML, is archived and the whole run is reproducible. Payroll routes to a payroll service by design. Scope depends on your books, so it starts with a conversation, not a quote form.
For the business that wants more than one rescue: we connect scheduling, quotes, invoices, customer records, and books into one system we build and maintain with you — with you as deep in the controls as you want to be. Engagements from $5,000, scoped on a call — because your shop isn't a product on a shelf. The evidence is live: a whole demo estate of this work runs right now at acme.darn-tech.com, and most Layer 1 customers who want a second system end up here.
The self-hosted small-business line includes a per-trade job board + customer status page — $49–79/mo on your own subdomain, 2-week free trial. One shared engine, retargeted per industry. These are real working tools with demo data, live now at acme.darn-tech.com — and they double as the working evidence for Layer 2: every whole-shop engagement is assembled from the same parts you can click through here.
Not sure which layer you need?
That's what the call is for. 30 minutes, I learn your stack, and I tell you straight whether I'm the right fit — and if I'm not, who is.
Book a 30-min call