Custom Application Development Services

Custom Application Services are referred to as specialized services made by technology companies to meet clients’ particular demand for building, applying, and maintaining custom software applications. The custom application service creates specific features that distinct them from general software designed for broad users.

There are several types of custom application services offered, such as application development, integration, customization and tailoring, maintenance and support, testing and quality assurance, cloud management, security, and migration. The goal of a custom application service is to create an efficient solution that perfectly fits the client’s needs.

Planning & Requirements Gathering

• Identify business goals, users, and key problems the app should solve

It is required for technology providers to understand that each client has their own characters and situation. As this is a custom application service, it is only natural that we start with identifying the client’s goals and problems simultaneously. Try to be as detailed as possible at this phase.

• Define scope, features, and constraints

Once problems and goals are gathered, the project can move on to identify the features of the software. This phase includes listing priorities and constraints. The list will be the guide for possible development processes as well as ensure that the business needs and objectives are met.

• Collect compliance, regulatory, or technical requirements (e.g., data security, API integrations)

It is also required that the custom application service provider consider other requirements, such as regulatory and technical aspects. This can include data security, API integrations, accessibility, compliance with stakeholders, etc.

• Create initial documentation: functional requirements, use cases, user personas 

The last process in this stage is creating outlines or blueprints of the specific functions and features that are agreed upon by the two parties as prioritized needs. The document shall be comprehensive in describing the workflow of the system, functional specifications, expected outputs, and etc. This document should be accessible to both developers and designers as their guideline.

Database and API Structure with Custom Front End Application

Custom application services offer several benefits compared to off-the-shelf software, particularly for supply chain compliance. Here are several key advantages of using custom application services.

• Customised business needs: each business has specific necessities and challenges, so instead of wasting your time away picking the best software available in the market that was created for general users, custom applications offer direct impact and alignment for your needs.
• Efficient compliance management: by using custom application services, you will have a single platform to consolidate multiple regulatory requirements, such as product safety, trade compliance, customs, etc.) Therefore, your work will be more time-efficient.
• Real-time regulatory updates: custom application services can connect directly to APIs from customs authorities, monitoring services, trade databases, and many more. Thus, you will receive real-time updates on tariff fluctuations, sanctions list, and regulatory changes.
• Integration with existing applications: custom application services can be seamlessly integrated with widely used existing systems such as ERP, logistics, procurement, etc. It will also enable data sharing between divisions.
• Help improve accuracy and reduce risk: compared to existing software, custom application services have generally better compliance checks, and they will automatically lower the risk of fines, delays, and damage.
• Flexibility: a custom application is ideal to ensure growth in your business. If you plan to expand in various forms, this service will help accomplish your vision by customizing dashboards, report forms, audit log, etc.
• Cost-efficient: Despite a higher advance payment, the custom application service is a long-term investment. Custom applications will instantly diminish your reliance on multiple third-party software licenses and annual subscriptions.
• Competitive advantage: By deciding to build a custom application, you can benefit from early market entry, as compliance checks are time-efficient. It also improves transparency and traceability, which are attractive to both partners and regulators.

However, it is crucial to understand the application architecture before building the custom application. Architecture is the structure within a custom application service that defines how components interact with each other, the organization of the entire system, and features reliability. The most common patterns in application architecture are monolithic, microservices, serverless, event-driven, and layered. In order to pick the ideal application architecture for a custom application service, we can help you with the following steps:

• Plan database schema and data flows

A database schema is the organization of databases, such as tables, columns, attributes, indexes, and many more. Meanwhile, data flow is the way your data travels through the systems (access, update, and encryption). It is important to determine how those two things are related to each other.

• Set up API specifications 

At this step, you need to define the role of API in your structure, whether it’s providing backend services or if there will be internal or third-party systems involved. The most common API styles are REST (Representational State Transfer), GraphQL, gRPC, and WebSockets.

• Implement core business logic, workflows, and data handling

This part represents the real values of the custom application service. Core business logic is the rule and operational flow that defines how the application behaves. That includes how it is applied in the form of sequences of steps (workflow) and interactions with data storage (data handling). For example, in e-commerce, this step enables users to place orders, automatically reduce stock amount, accept and record payment.

• Build APIs and endpoints for frontend and third-party integrations

Building APIs is a crucial step in custom application service architecture, as APIs act as the bridge between your backend and consumers. It involves frontend clients (web or mobile apps), third-party partners (payment gateways, customer support), and microservices. This will test your functionality, reliability, and divide concerns.

• Set up authentication, authorization, and user roles

This step is essential to protect sensitive data, restrict access, and impose business rules on users. Authentication and authorization are processes to verify the users and determine what they are allowed to do within the ecosystem. Username, email, and password are the most common authentication tools. Therefore, the roles of the users can be determined and divided after. Whether they are external users (consumers) or administrators.

• Ensure scalability and security (rate limiting, encryption, logging)

Scalability and security assurance are enforced in the modern application architecture. This process will determine accessibility and processing speeds in order to maintain consistency and stability within the system. Developers generally will prevent abuse of servers by limiting requests for certain cases (for example, during high load, or limiting access per IP or user).

Hosting & Maintenance Support

• Hosting service for web application deployment and backend APIs 

Hosting custom application services includes server setup, application deployment, cloud storage and backup, domain and DNS settings. There are several hosting options, such as Cloud IaaS (AWS, Google Cloud), PaaS (Heroku, Vercel), and self-hosted Virtual Private Server (Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Vultr). Each hosting service has its own features and limitations to be included in considerations.

• Regular updates (security patches, new features)

Regular updates are crucial to fix bugs, errors, and provide security patches for custom application services. Each task has its own timeline and schedule. Bug fixing should be responded to based on reported cases, security patches require immediate action, while updates have more relaxed windows.

• Optimize performance based on usage metrics

Metric is an ideal tool to measure custom application service performance. It provides traffic and usage patterns as well as API response times, memory spikes, page load duration, error rates, and many more. This will help build rooms for improvement and efficiency.

• Scale infrastructure as demand grows

Metrics also help developers and business units to see the demand status. When it grows, so does the custom application service capacity. Auto-scaling can be done if you use cloud infrastructure, but if you do not, there are options for solutions, such as implementing rate limiting (API protection) or using traffic directors.

• Add new integrations or modules based on business evolution

As the business grows, you can try to renew the module. This will encourage enhanced workflow, market expansion, automation, and improvement of user experience. At this step, custom application service providers may consider which features should be maintained, improved, added, or instead terminated. Bugs should be addressed, and updates are planned. The usage of the latest version of APIs is also encouraged to avoid problems in the new modules. Automation is essential to either reduce manual work or accelerate the handling process.

Core Services 

The custom application service is the opposite of the general application service. The custom application services are made to satisfy the specific clients who want specific features to help their business. Therefore, building the custom application service is more expensive and takes more time to specify what the business needs. However, this is an important thing to do in order to make our application stand out and be easily distinguished from others.

For a business that is specifically involved in international trade, especially in export and import, logistics services, and customs brokers, they also need to build a Custom Application Service. This application’s service will help their business to manage their services, such as tracking shipments, inventory management, route optimization, and finding the Harmonized System, also known as the HS codes, all over the world.

As one of the pioneer HS code finders, Jureem HS Code Match offers the API features that can be integrated with your custom application service. Our service will help you boost your business in international trade. Not only for finding HS codes easily, we provide many features to assist international trade services directly from your custom application service.

Smart HS Search with AI

Smart HS Search is one of the most robust features of HS Code Match to conveniently find the HS codes. This feature is a combination of a search engine with AI, which assists users in finding detailed information and the right HS codes. Smart HS Search is easy to use, even if you are not familiar with HS Code Match in general.

• Type product name → get HS matches with confidence scores.
  You can set a certain product and choose the origin country and destination country. Then, you will find the list of HS codes. Smart HS Search results will help you to find the right HS code based on the higher confidence scores.
• Autocomplete with official HS descriptions.
  Smart HS Search is equipped with AI to know what the user wants. If you suggest some of the HS codes, this tool can complete automatically to make your task easier. On the other hand, we provide the official dataset from the World Customs Organization or the database from all countries.

Tariff Calculator

The tariff calculator is a useful feature from HS Code Match that directly provides the tariff rate in order to export a product from one country to another. This feature from HS Code Match will provide the list of tariff rates. Then you can choose the most preferred tariff rates to minimize the duty.

• Input: product + origin + destination → output duty breakdown.
  Using the tariff calculator on HS Code Match is quite easy. First, you need to choose your product and set the country of origin and the destination country. The tariff will appear on the results, and also the breakdown of the duty that you need to pay before exporting a product.
• Show MFN rate, FTA preferences, and special duties (antidumping, countervailing).
  Not only showing the details of the duty, HS Code Match also provides the information that this product is included in the FTA or MFN rate. This tool shows the specific information related to the duties on a certain product, such as antidumping or countervailing.

Regulation Alerts

Regulation Alerts is considered one of the useful features of HS Code Match. This tool will help you find the latest regulations from the country based on the products that you are looking for. With this tool, you do not need to look at the customs websites to find a certain product.

• Real-time updates when tariffs/regulations change.

This tool will give you the updated tariff rate or regulations based on the specific country. It will help you get the information on detailed regulations before exporting or importing a product. Regulation alerts allow you to take action based on the latest regulations.

• Push notifications or email or push notifications

HS Code Match also provides push notifications to inform you of the latest regulations. Our notification will be sent through email to ensure that you get the recent update of tariff rates and other notifications related to the regulation from a specific country.

• Graphic visuals to understand updates in different regions, affected industries, and products

Customs Reports & Exports

HS Code Match is designed based on government information. Therefore, our service will inform you of the original data and documentation related to international trade from the official government.

• Generate compliance reports (PDF/Excel).

HS Code Match provides the specific documentation in order to export or import a certain product. This is useful for you in order to meet the specific document requirements based on the agreement between the two countries. These documents can be made to fulfill the compliance report as proof that you meet all of the prerequisites before exporting or importing a product from another country.

• Save HS lookups for audit

HS Code Match is equipped with a download button, which will allow you to download the documents of HS codes based on the product and the country that you are looking for. You do not need to find the document separately on the government website. This will be useful for you who want to audit the HS code.

Monitoring Dashboard

The Monitoring Dashboard is one of the interesting tools from HS Code Match. This tool allows you to monitor and check the tariff and regulation based on a specific country. This tool is similar to other tools in HS Code Match, which is easy to use even for a person who has never used it before.

• Upload a product list to monitor for new tariff rates

With the Monitoring Dashboard, you can upload the product list of the tariff rates. Then, you will find the best HS code with the lowest tariff rates before deciding to export or import products, because new tariff rates would have a huge impact on the price of the product.

• View regulatory changes for items under the monitoring list

Not only for tariffs, the Monitoring Dashboard is also applied to monitor the regulations in a certain country. This tool allows us to understand the recent regulations before exporting a product. The importer or exporter needs to understand the updated regulations to ensure that they get the lowest duties possible. If they find the recent tariff hikes, they can find an alternative country that has similar products.

• View changes in regulations and tariffs for new HS Codes regulations

The Monitoring Dashboard gives you a chance to know the regulation and tariff simultaneously. It is essential to know the changes between the regulation and the tariff due to the impact on the industry. The block and increase tariff commonly make it difficult for importers, and they try to find alternative products to be sold in their country.