Your time is your most valuable asset.
We build the software that gives it back: custom tools for small offices that do the repetitive work for you. One flat fee. No subscriptions. You own every line of it.
In daily use at a law office on the Oregon coast.
The Law Office of Holly Anne Gibbons is a solo estate-planning practice. Its four-person staff run the office from one program we built for them: it reads the office calendar and builds client folders in bulk, prints trust and will packets, fills in funding letters from a single intake form, tracks advance directives, keeps a shared task list, and produces the weekly staff-meeting agenda in one click.
It saves the office about an hour a week on the agenda alone, and turns multi-step printing and letter jobs into single clicks. Nobody there had used custom software before. They use it every day, and each person picked their own look for it: one chose comic book, one chose dog paws.
That is what software looks like when it is built around the people who use it.
What we build
Three kinds of software, all built the same way: around how your office already works, delivered for a flat price, and handed over with the source code.
Desktop programs
Windows programs that do the repetitive parts of the job: fill the forms, sort the files, print the packets, sync the calendar. They run on your machines, so your data stays in your building.
Example: the LOHG Automation Hub
Web apps
Tools your whole team uses from any computer or phone, with live updates everyone sees at once: shared lists, trackers, scoreboards. Hosted where you choose, including on hardware you own.
Example: Ledger
Phone apps
Android apps for the work that happens away from a desk. Simple, works offline, no account required.
Example: Cyber Tome
Built because we wanted them
Not everything we make is for a client. These are tools we built because we wanted them ourselves, which is the strictest test we know of whether something is good enough to ship.
Ledger
A live scorekeeper for a card game our friends play every week. Everyone joins from their own phone; scores, streaks, player ratings, and achievements update across the table as the round is played. Hundreds of rounds of history, and card art drawn by hand.
In development
Cyber Tome
A phone app for making scrapbook pages out of photos and notes, then sending them as a PDF that opens anywhere. Built for one specific person who wanted exactly this and nothing more.
How it works
Three steps. You are never asked to learn our tools, sign a contract you can't read, or pay for something before you've seen it.
Talk
A free 30-minute call. You describe what eats your day; we ask questions and tell you plainly whether automation will help. No jargon, no pitch.
Build
We design the tool and build it, checking in with you as it takes shape so it fits the way your office actually runs.
Hand off
You get the program, the source code, plain-English documentation, and lifetime bug fixes. It's yours. No ongoing dependency on us.
One price. No subscription. Ever.
Most projects cost the same, and you know the number before we start.
Bug fixes: free, forever.
If something we built stops working, we fix it. No charge, no time limit.
Changes after delivery.
New features are $150 for the first two hours, then $75 an hour, quoted before we start.
Bigger builds.
Multi-user web apps, phone apps, and anything larger in scope are quoted after the free call. Always a flat number, never a monthly one.
What is your office paying to rent software?
Add up the monthly fees for the tools you'd like to replace. Most offices are surprised.
About Ochre
Ochre Entwhistle has been automating things since he was a teenager writing batch files to skip chores on his own computer. Macros came next, then scripting, then full programs. Every job he has had since, he has automated the repetitive parts of, and the pattern was always the same: the work got done sooner and better, and the people doing it got their afternoons back. The point was never shortcuts. It was time.
A lecture by Dr. Frank Bernieri at Oregon State University gave it words: your time is your most valuable asset. Ochre liked that enough to have it tattooed on his forearm. The hourglass in the logo comes from the same idea; his wife, Ivy, designed it.
Ochre Automation is a one-person shop on the Oregon coast. Ochre builds everything himself, writes the documentation so the next person can maintain it, and hands over the source code, so you are never stuck depending on him, or on anyone, to keep your own tools running.
- Built so your people spend the day on work that needs a person.
- Runs on your machines. Your data stays in your building.
- No subscriptions, no accounts, no phoning home.
- Source code included. Repair it, change it, or hire anyone to maintain it.
Let's talk about your time.
A free 30-minute call. Tell us what slows your office down and we'll tell you, plainly, whether we can help.
Based on the Oregon coast. Working with offices anywhere we can reach by phone, screen share, and remote access.