Barnsley tech company more than doubles income with online booking software

A Yorkshire software company has announced that it has seen its income more than double since June.

Merlinsoft, a Barnsley company specialising in software for the visitor attraction, retail and charity sector, saw the increase after releasing new software which enables venues to take bookings online.

The business went from an income of around £400k per month in normal times to more than £1m per month, as Merlinsoft marketed its new software to farms to allow people to book for their ‘Pick your own’ fruits activities, including strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries and now pumpkins.

As the visitor attraction sector started to open again, the company also marketed it to visitor attractions.

Merlinsoft is now actively recruiting new staff, with support through the Sheffield City Region Growth Hub, and is looking for two more software developers and one systems support executive.

Owen Gleadall, managing director of Merlinsoft, commented: “Once restrictions were eased, we started bringing people back in late June, as we recognised that Pick Your Own Farms were looking for software to help them meet Covid-19 restrictions in enabling people to book and pay online in order to maintain social distancing and protect their staff.

“We never predicted what a positive impact the lockdown would have on our business.

“There are only a small number of companies that do what we do across the world and our challenge is to recruit more developers to help us to meet our growth aspirations.

“Our system is also unique in the way it allows users to create their own bookings platform, maintaining their own corporate identity and branding, in less than an hour.

“We are also working hard to demonstrate our expertise to the pub and restaurant trade who also need booking systems like ours to help them meet Covid-19 restrictions.”

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