Spreadsheets run a huge amount of British business, and often that's exactly right. But there's a point where the spreadsheet starts costing more than it saves. Here are the signs, what to try first, and when custom software makes sense.
Spreadsheets are great, until they aren't
A spreadsheet is quick to set up, everyone knows how to use it and it costs nothing. For one person tracking one thing, it's hard to beat. Trouble starts when the business grows around it: more people, more data, more steps, and more riding on it being right.
Signs you've outgrown it
- Several people edit it, and someone regularly overwrites someone else's work.
- There are versions. "Tracker FINAL v3 (Sarah's copy).xlsx" is a warning sign.
- You copy and paste between sheets, or retype the same details into an email, an invoice and a report.
- Mistakes cost money. A missed renewal, a wrong price, a deadline nobody spotted.
- Reminders live in someone's head. The sheet holds the dates, but a person has to remember to look.
- People need it away from a desk, on site or on the road, and a spreadsheet on a phone is painful.
- Clients or partners need to see or add to it, and you can't safely share the whole thing.
- Only one person really understands it. If they're off sick, the process stops.
- It holds sensitive data, like personal or health details, without proper control over who sees what.
One or two of these is normal. Four or more, and the spreadsheet is probably slowing you down.
What to try first
Custom software isn't always the answer. Before you build anything, check whether these would do the job:
- A shared online spreadsheet instead of files passed around by email. It fixes the versions problem straight away.
- Off-the-shelf software made for your industry. If a good one exists at a fair price, use it.
- No-code tools that turn a spreadsheet into forms and simple apps. They're good for internal processes with a handful of users.
When custom software makes sense
- Your process is different in a way that matters, and off-the-shelf tools force you to work around them.
- The cost of mistakes or lost time is clearly bigger than the cost of building it.
- Your judgement is the valuable part, and you want it built in as rules, checklists or ratings.
- Other businesses have the same problem. Then it's not just a tool, it could be a product you sell.
That last one is worth thinking about. Many good software businesses started as one firm's spreadsheet that everyone else in the industry wanted a copy of.
An example
A made-up example, typical of what we hear.
Example · A cleaning company's rota
Picture a commercial cleaning firm with 40 staff running its rota on a spreadsheet. The office manager rebuilds it every Friday, texts shifts to each cleaner, and phones round when someone is off sick. Clients call to ask whether their building had been cleaned.
- Signs: one person who understood it, shifts retyped into texts, no record clients could see, last-minute gaps handled by phone.
- First try: a shared sheet helps, but cleaners still can't see or swap shifts on their phones.
- What they need: a phone app showing each cleaner their shifts, a tap to confirm a job done, and a page each client could check.
With that, Friday's rota could shrink from half a day to well under an hour, and most of the client calls would stop. If other cleaning firms want the same thing, that's how a fix for one business becomes a product.
How to start
Write down what the spreadsheet does today, who touches it and where it goes wrong. That's most of a brief already. See how to brief a software developer, or tell us about your spreadsheet.