Custom software,
built in Vancouver.
We build the software Lower Mainland businesses currently rent from American vendors in American dollars. Dispatch, quoting, inventory, approvals, reporting. One fixed quote, and you own the code.
Coverage at a glance
- 12
- Cities served in person
- CAD
- Quoted and invoiced
- 11
- Systems shipped
- $0
- Monthly licence fee
Six things imported software gets wrong about BC.
Buying local is not sentiment. The tools most Lower Mainland businesses run on were designed for a different tax system, a different labour code, a different safety regulator, and a road network without an inlet in the middle of it. Every one of these turns into a workaround somebody in your office performs by hand.
01
You are billed in US dollars
Most of the stack is priced in USD. Your real cost moves with the exchange rate every month, and the conversion spread is a line item nobody quoted you. A build is quoted and paid in Canadian dollars, once.
02
BC overtime is not the US rule
Overtime here starts after eight hours in a day as well as after forty in a week, with double time further out, and statutory holiday pay is averaged. Payroll and job-costing tools built around a forty-hour rule quietly produce the wrong number on every long day.
03
GST and PST are two different animals
They apply differently across materials, labour, and real property contracts, and a lot of imported software offers one tax field and a shrug. Getting it wrong is not a rounding error, it is a reassessment.
04
WorkSafeBC paperwork has its own shape
Notice of Project, incident reporting, toolbox talks, and the evidence a Certificate of Recognition audit expects to see. A generic safety module gives you fields designed for a different jurisdiction and a binder to reconcile.
05
Permits depend on which side of the line you are on
Electrical and gas work runs through Technical Safety BC in some municipalities and through the city in others, and Vancouver, Burnaby, and Surrey each do their own thing. Software that assumes one authority makes your office staff the integration layer.
06
Distance here is measured in bridges
Surrey to the North Shore at three in the afternoon is not the trip a straight-line map thinks it is. Dispatch that ignores the Ironworkers, the Massey Tunnel, and the Alex Fraser will keep promising your customers windows you cannot hit.
The businesses that keep the Lower Mainland running.
This work suits operators, not app ideas. Electrical and mechanical contractors, the kind running out of Port Kells, Annacis Island, and Big Bend. Property and facilities teams with buildings spread from downtown to Coquitlam. Clinics, private education providers, multi-site retail and food. Any shop with a price book, a dispatch board, and four subscriptions that refuse to talk to each other.
Client names are not published, because written permission is not on file and we do not assume it. What we can point at is the work itself.
In person across the Lower Mainland.
Discovery goes better standing in the place where the work happens, so we come to you for that part. The build runs remotely with weekly check-ins, which is faster and keeps travel out of your invoice.
Metro Vancouver, on site
- Vancouver
- Burnaby
- Surrey
- Richmond
- North Vancouver
- West Vancouver
- Coquitlam
- Port Coquitlam
- Port Moody
- New Westminster
- Delta
- Langley
The rest of BC and Canada, remote
The Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island, the Okanagan, Kamloops, the Kootenays, and the north, plus clients elsewhere in Canada. Remote engagements run the same way, and we have shipped for interior BC businesses without ever making them drive to the coast.
Four ways a BC project starts.
Path 01
Internal tools and automations
Dispatch, quoting, inventory, approvals, and reporting in one application instead of five subscriptions.
Read morePath 02
Larger builds
Multi-site and enterprise systems, scoped and quoted individually. Fixed price, milestone billed.
Read morePath 03
Public sector and municipalities
Pre-qualified with the province. WCAG 2.1 AA as a build standard, Canadian data residency available.
Read morePath 04
Partner Build
Reduced cash plus a minority equity position, for established operators digitizing a real business.
Read more
A shop in Surrey should not be paying a Texas software company in American dollars for a tool that thinks overtime starts at hour forty-one.
Coverage a BC client can check
Bound policies and an active WorkSafeBC account. Certificates and a clearance letter go out on request, usually the same day.
- Commercial general liability
- $5,000,000
- Professional liability (E&O)
- $2,000,000
- Cyber liability
- $2,000,000
- WorkSafeBC account
- 201966367
Bound and in force.
Bound and in force.
Bound and in force.
Active. Clearance letter on request.
Asked by Lower Mainland buyers.
- Do you meet clients in person in Metro Vancouver?
- Yes. Discovery goes far better on the shop floor or the job site than over video, so for Lower Mainland clients we come to you for the parts that benefit from it. The build itself runs remotely with weekly check-ins, because that is faster and it keeps travel time out of your invoice.
- Is Bluestone actually based in Vancouver?
- Bluestone is a Metro Vancouver studio. BlueStone AI Inc. is a federal corporation registered extraprovincially in British Columbia, with the registered municipality in Port Coquitlam and an active WorkSafeBC account. We work across the Lower Mainland in person and across the rest of BC and Canada remotely.
- Can you build software that handles BC-specific rules?
- That is a large part of why BC businesses call us. BC overtime starts after eight hours in a day as well as after forty in a week, GST and BC PST do not behave the same way on materials, labour, and real property contracts, WorkSafeBC paperwork has its own shape, and electrical and gas work runs through Technical Safety BC or the municipality depending on where the job is. Software built for a US market treats all of that as an edge case. Built here, it is just the requirements.
- Do you work with municipalities and BC public bodies?
- Yes. Bluestone is a pre-qualified supplier to the Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia under RFQ OAG-RFQ-26-068 and is pre-qualified on the Province of BC Multi-Use List for Service Area 3, Software Development and Testing, reference ON-003317-03, as well as registered on the BC Digital Marketplace. Details are on the public sector page.
Everything else, including how support is priced after launch, is on the FAQ.
Talk to someone who is in the same time zone.
Send the list of what you pay for every month. You get a written breakdown of what one system would replace and what it would cost, in Canadian dollars.