I recovered a failed legacy contract system and built a stable replacement for a mid-sized publishing company, restoring financial visibility and eliminating operational risk around author payments under critical time pressure.
This project took place in a mid-sized publishing company with roughly 200 employees. Around 30 people were directly involved in the contract management process, spanning editorial, administration, and leadership.
The trigger was abrupt and operationally critical: the company's legacy contract system—built in the early 1990s—had effectively stopped working two years earlier. What had been treated as a tolerable workaround turned into a real risk once leadership realized they no longer had a reliable overview of author contracts and payment obligations.
This was not a modernization initiative. It was a recovery and stabilization problem under time pressure.
The organization was operating without a functioning system of record for contracts.
No reliable overview of which authors needed to be paid, and when
Contract data locked in a failing legacy application with unclear structure
Heavy manual work using ad-hoc spreadsheets and personal notes
High operational risk around payments, compliance, and author relationships
No clear ownership of data accuracy across editorial, admin, and leadership
The issue was not only technical. The process itself had evolved informally over years without being explicitly defined.
These constraints ruled out "clean-slate" redesigns or complex tooling.
I owned the problem end to end:
There was no predefined specification when I started.
I deliberately split the work into phases to reduce risk.
First, I focused on restoring visibility, not building a system. I analyzed the legacy database to understand what data existed, how reliable it was, and what could be extracted safely. I produced a cleaned, structured Excel-based overview that immediately answered one critical question: who needs to be paid, and when.
Only after stabilizing operations did I move to system design. I mapped the real contract workflow by talking to editors, admin staff, and leadership, focusing on decision points and approvals rather than screens or features.
I kept scope tight. Anything that did not directly support contract creation, approval, payment, or auditability was excluded.
The final solution was an internal desktop application backed by a new, structured database hosted on the company's in-house server.
At a system level, it introduced a clear contract lifecycle:
The system became the single source of truth for contracts, with controlled access, auditability, and built-in notifications for payment dates and delivery obligations.
The interface was intentionally simple and familiar, optimized for users who had worked with the previous system for decades.
Create and submit contract proposals, track approval status, receive payment notifications—no manual spreadsheet tracking.
Enrich contracts with legal data, manage payment schedules, generate contract documents—automated workflow reduces errors.
Real-time visibility into financial obligations, approval oversight, audit trail—informed decision-making restored.
Operationally, the company moved from reactive guesswork to controlled execution.
Leadership regained a reliable overview of financial obligations
Payments to authors became predictable and traceable
Manual reconciliation work was largely eliminated
Contract data became consistent, secure, and auditable
Teams had clarity on who owns which step of the process
The most immediate risk—missed or incorrect payments—was resolved within weeks. The longer-term benefit was a stable internal system the organization could actually operate.
Many established organizations carry critical processes inside fragile, aging systems. When those systems fail, the real problem is rarely "missing software." It is lost visibility, unclear ownership, and undocumented workflows.
This project demonstrates how I work in those situations:
I stabilize operations before optimizing them
I design systems around decision flow, not features
I balance urgency, compliance, and usability
I'm effective where technical, operational, and human constraints overlap
This is the kind of work I'm best suited for: internal systems that quietly keep the business running.
If you're dealing with a failing legacy system, need to recover operational visibility under time pressure, or want someone who can stabilize critical business processes without disrupting daily operations—I can help.
Discuss Your SystemConfidentiality note: This case study describes a real project delivered for a publishing company. Company names, specific contract details, and certain technical specifics have been anonymized to protect client confidentiality. All outcomes, timelines, and technical challenges are accurate.