With the plethora of open-source software available today one would wonder why companies employ software engineers anymore.. surely all a company needs is a few deployment engineers and someone to set up the configuration files?

And yet a lot of businesses have unique requirements. Such that a generic package doesn't quite do what is needed, or does too much and places the company at risk by having excess functionality that could be abused or affect the core function in an unintended manner.

A number of questions come to mind. What objections does your client have to a pre-packaged solution? What experience has he had with other applications that come to your mind? What experience have you had with other similar applications?

Beyond the technical there also lies other questions: are you being paid contract rates to develop the custom application (the more work the better)? Are you a permanent and your overriding concern is maintenance three years down the track (and hence use of an off-the-shelf product may be easier)?

Perhaps this company wants to sell the product you develop to other companies later on and they require exclusive ownership of the product.. There are many questions to be asked, both of yourself and of the client.