Introducing Alba Business Desk

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Alba Designs has always been a design studio first. But the same problem kept coming up in conversations with clients: they had a good website and no idea what happened to an enquiry after it arrived. So we built something for it. Alba Business Desk is our CRM and business management tool, made for South African SMEs.

Why We Built It

We kept seeing the same setup. A spreadsheet for customers. WhatsApp for conversations. A separate app for invoices. A notebook for follow-ups. Every piece worked; together they leaked.

The existing options had two problems. Most CRMs charge per user per month, which punishes you for hiring. And almost none include invoicing — so you end up running a CRM and an accounting tool that do not share a single record.

Most tools give you the relationship or the money that comes out of it. We wanted both in one place.

What It Does

Customers and sales

Contacts and companies with full history, a pipeline board from lead to close showing value, owner and win probability on each card, and tasks tied to the work they belong to. Deals with no recorded activity get flagged as stale before they go cold.

Reporting that answers actual questions

Win rate, average deal size, average sales cycle, a pipeline funnel with stage-to-stage conversion, revenue trend, and progress against sales targets. Plus weighted forecasting, so your pipeline number is adjusted for probability rather than wishful thinking.

Invoicing, expenses and VAT

Invoices, credit notes, statements, supplier invoices, debit notes and expenses — in the format South African tax rules require. It compiles an income statement, VAT summary and spend analysis from what you capture, so the paperwork comes out of the work you were doing anyway.

Team workspaces

Invite staff into one organisation with roles and permissions, instead of sharing a login. Everyone works from the same customers and deals.

Integrations

Google Calendar for scheduling, and Instagram, Facebook and TikTok for follower counts and post engagement alongside the rest of your customer data.

The Pricing Decision

This was the deliberate one. Alba Business Desk is R699 per month for the whole business — not per user — billed monthly through PayFast.

Per-user pricing creates a strange incentive: every person you add makes the tool more expensive, so businesses limit who gets access, and the system ends up with partial data. A per-business price means you can put everyone on it, which is the only way a shared system actually works.

Everything above is in the product today, on the one plan. Nothing is held back for a higher tier.

How To Try It

There is no sales process. Three steps: sign in and look around, subscribe and set up (bring in your customer list, set your pipeline stages, invite your team), then run the business from it.

How It Fits With The Studio

Alba Business Desk is a product of Alba Designs, and that connection is the point. We build the website, the branding, the SEO and the Google Business Profile that generate enquiries — and now the tool that handles them once they arrive.

For clients who want both, that means your site and your customer data are designed together rather than bolted on afterwards. For anyone who just wants the tool, it stands on its own perfectly well.

New to the idea entirely? Our guide on what a CRM is and whether you need one is a better starting point — including the cases where the honest answer is that you don't.