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Porthline Digital
A small harbour at dusk with fishing boats on calm water; through the lit window of a stone harbour office, a person seen from behind reviews an operations dashboard on a wall screen.

Based near Nairn · working across the UK

Automation that works alongside your hire and rental desk

I build automations that work alongside your desk staff and the booking system you already run. They draft replies to rental enquiries, take decisions and business facts from your team, and apply them to future drafts. In the current drafts-only setup, nothing goes to a customer without your staff. I also build the websites and software around them.

Tell me how your desk worksSee what it does

Running with a UK hire firm since October 2026 · Years of hands-on experience with ProHire · You deal with me directly

What it takes off the desk

Live today with a UK hire firm on ProHire, and growing as I build it. Your staff stay in control of everything a customer sees.

  • Drafts replies to rental enquiries

    Replies are drafted with the hire details filled in, ready for your staff to check, edit and send. It works alongside your team.

  • Works with your staff through their channel

    Staff can review drafts, respond to the assistant and provide decisions or business facts through their staff channel.

  • Applies staff decisions to future drafts

    It uses staff-confirmed answers and decisions to inform later drafts, so replies follow the way your desk already works.

  • Quotes from your rate card and availability

    Draft quotes work from your own prices and what is actually free, so staff check a quote rather than build one.

    Live on ProHire

The current automation handles enquiry drafting and staff workflows. Upsell, wider fleet management and PCN handling are in development, with amendments, follow-ups and more rental admin on the roadmap. Built to work alongside the booking system you already run. Live today on ProHire. If you run something else, talk to me and I'll check what it allows.

See everything it does →See how it runs on ProHire →

Three ways Porthline helps your business run better

Not running a hire desk? The same approach works for any business with a busy inbox and repeat admin. The website out front, the systems your team works in, and the automation between your tools. Each stands on its own, or works together as one joined-up setup.

Websites & search

Get found, explain the offer clearly and turn visits into useful enquiries. Search foundations, AEO and GEO, conversion journeys, and forms that feed your CRM or booking system instead of another inbox.

Explore websites & search →

Portals & internal tools

One secure place for customers, staff or suppliers to manage requests, bookings, documents, updates and operational information. Apps, dashboards and custom internal tools sit here too.

Explore portals & internal tools →

Automation

Connect your tools, automate the predictable steps, and hand the language-heavy work to a system that reads and sorts enquiries, pulls detail out of documents, summarises, and drafts replies for staff approval.

Explore automation →

Rules first. Language tools only where they earn their place.

Most of what removes repetitive work is plain, reliable rules moving information between your tools. Reading, sorting and drafting for approval are added on top for the language-heavy parts, where they genuinely help. People stay in control wherever judgement matters, and where off-the-shelf software or a simple rule is the better answer, I will say so.

When the website and the way work is managed no longer fit together

None of these is unusual on its own. The cost is the time, delay and uncertainty created when they happen on every job, every week, across several people.

If two or three of these look familiar, there is usually something worth fixing, and it is often smaller than people expect.

  1. Enquiries disappear into an inbox and someone has to remember to act on them.
  2. Staff copy the same information between a form, a spreadsheet and a CRM.
  3. A spreadsheet has quietly become a business-critical system.
  4. Customers ring or email to ask where their job, booking or quote has got to.
  5. Quotes and bookings only move when someone remembers to follow them up.
  6. The weekly or monthly report gets rebuilt by hand every time.
See website and software work →

A Workflow & Systems Review tells you which fix is worth paying for

A focused one-week review of one or two repetitive processes. I map how the work happens now, identify where time and money are going, and recommend the smallest practical fix.

Book a Workflow & Systems ReviewOr just tell me what is getting stuck →

What you get

  • One or two defined processes mapped end to end
  • Where time, delay and cost are building up, using your own figures
  • Ranked recommendations: what to automate, where drafting fits, what stays human
  • A scoped proposal for anything worth building

Quoted for your work. Any further work is scoped and quoted separately.

How it works

1

Chat

I map the workflow that is costing you time: enquiries, bookings, documents, quotes or handovers.

2

Scope

I turn the process into a clear plan: what to automate, what stays human, and what needs to be built.

3

Build

I design, build and test the workflow, portal or dashboard around your real process.

4

Support

After launch, I keep it running smoothly and refine it as your team puts it to work.

Running a hire or rental desk? Start with a short call about how your desk works.

A low stone building at dusk on the Moray Firth coast with one warmly lit office window and two white vans on wet gravel, sea mist and hills behind.

Built in the Highlands, designed around the realities of running a growing business

Porthline Digital is based near Nairn and works directly with organisations across Inverness, the Highlands, Scotland and the wider UK. You deal with Cal throughout the project, from understanding the process to designing, building and supporting the finished system.

Local work can be discussed in person where practical. Projects further afield are delivered through clear workshops, prototypes and regular reviews.

Areas served

Web design in Inverness →Web design in Nairn →Business automation across the Highlands →Custom portals for Highland businesses →

Funding · eligible sectors

Funding may cover much of the cost

Some Highlands, Islands and Scottish businesses may be eligible for funding support towards websites, automation, portals and digital systems. I can help you understand what may be available and shape the project around a clear business case.

See if your project could be funded →

Questions people ask before getting in touch

Mainly automation for hire and rental desks that drafts replies to rental enquiries and works alongside your staff. I also build websites, portals and business automation, and the connections between them. Most work starts with an operational problem rather than a technology.

Website projects usually start from £2,500 and focused custom portals from £6,000. Automation is priced differently. There is a setup fee and a monthly fee, based on the work you want it to take on. I agree both with you before any build work starts. The setup fee covers building and testing it, and the monthly fee keeps it running, covering monitoring, fixes, small changes and a short monthly report of what it has done. The minimum term is three months. Website care starts from £175 per month; portal support is scoped separately. The final price is agreed in writing before any work starts.

A paid review of one or two repetitive processes, delivered within a week of receiving the information needed. You get a map of how the work runs now, an estimate of where time and money are going based on your own figures, ranked recommendations and a scoped proposal for anything worth building. Quoted for your work. Any further work is scoped and quoted separately.

The reliable parts of most workflows are plain rules and staff approval. Language tools go on top for the reading-heavy work: sorting enquiries, pulling detail out of documents, summarising long threads and drafting replies for someone to approve. I will tell you when a rule or an off-the-shelf tool is the better answer.

You do not have to decide before getting in touch. Describe the enquiry, customer or staff process that is causing friction, and I will help work out the most proportionate fix, which is sometimes simpler than a full build.

Usually, yes. Most businesses already have the tools they need. A lot of the work is connecting forms, email, spreadsheets, CRM and booking systems so information moves between them without being copied by hand.

Yes. Porthline is based near Nairn and works with businesses across Inverness, Nairnshire and the Scottish Highlands, as well as further afield in Scotland and the wider UK. Local work can be discussed in person where practical.

You work directly with Cal from the first call to launch and beyond, so the person mapping your process is the same person designing, building and supporting the system. No hand-off to an account manager or a junior developer.

What should be working better than it is today?

You do not need to decide whether the answer is a website, portal or automation before getting in touch. Describe the enquiry, customer or staff process that is causing friction, and Porthline will help determine the most proportionate next step.

Book a 20-minute call
hello@porthlinedigital.co.uk01463 589301

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