The IT Department
You Can Actually Afford.

TinkerForce looks after the technology for small businesses around Horsley, Leatherhead, Guildford and Woking — the hardware, the Wi-Fi, the backups, and the software that off-the-shelf tools never quite fit. Honest advice, plain English, no tie-in contracts.

What I Do
  • Local & remote
  • No jargon
  • No tie-in contracts

Small Businesses, Properly Looked After

Hello — I’m Janusz, though everyone around here calls me Yanni. I’ve spent years looking after computers, networks and servers, and TinkerForce is for the businesses round here that don’t have an IT department of their own.

Most small firms are quietly running on a laptop, a router, and a spreadsheet that everything depends on. I make that arrangement reliable — and where off-the-shelf software doesn’t fit how you work, I build the small pieces that do. No pressure, no confusing tech speak, just practical help that fits the way you actually operate.

What I Get Called About

  • The accounts spreadsheet has become the system nobody dares touch
  • Wi-Fi drops out in the back office, or the card machine loses signal
  • Nobody knows whether the backups actually work — until the day they’re needed
  • The laptop that holds everything together is six years old and quietly dying
  • You need a small system that does one specific job, and nothing off the shelf fits

Every enquiry starts with a free conversation — online, or at your premises if you’re local — including evenings if that suits you better.

What I Do

Three ways to work together — advice, software, and ongoing care. No upselling, no lock-in.

Consultancy from £75/hour · Custom software quoted per project · First conversation free

Advice & Consultancy

  • Choosing hardware, servers and broadband to suit your budget
  • Wi-Fi and network design that holds up under real use
  • Backups, security and basic GDPR hygiene — checked and documented
  • A straight answer on repair versus replace, with no upselling

Buy once, properly, instead of twice, badly.

Custom Software

  • Small applications built around how your business really works
  • Replace the spreadsheet that everything depends on
  • Records, logs, bookings, job sheets, compliance evidence
  • Runs on your own hardware, or hosted and maintained by me

If off-the-shelf doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit.

Ongoing Care

  • Monitoring, updates and tested backups
  • Software and hosting looked after month to month
  • A named person who answers when something matters
  • No long contracts — month to month, cancel any time

For clients whose systems I build or host.

Homes & Home Offices

  • Slow computers, patchy Wi-Fi, choosing a new device
  • Passwords and online safety, set up properly once
  • Smart home that works locally, without the cloud
  • Printers, backups, and phone or email migrations

The same honest help, at kitchen-table scale.

Open Source First

If a free, open-source tool already does the job, I’ll tell you — even though it earns me less.

  • No lock-in. Your data stays yours, in a format you can take elsewhere.
  • Your own hardware where it makes sense — not rented back to you from somebody else’s cloud.
  • No licence resale, no vendor commissions, no referral fees. I’m not on anyone’s payroll.
  • No tracking, anywhere. No analytics on this site, no advertising pixels, no data harvesting.
  • Big tech last, not first. Where a self-hosted or open alternative exists that genuinely works, that’s what I’ll recommend.

Most of what a small business actually needs already exists, free, and often better than the paid alternative. What you pay me for is knowing which one fits — and setting it up so it works and keeps working.

Not Sure What You Need? That’s Fine.

You don’t need to have it all worked out before you get in touch — that’s what the first conversation is for. Tell me what’s annoying you or what you’re trying to achieve, and I’ll tell you honestly whether it’s worth doing, worth doing differently, or worth not doing at all.

Start With a Free Conversation

No obligation, no pressure, no sales pitch — just a straight answer about your setup.