Excel is not a system; it cannot handle multi-person collaboration, permission control, and process flow.
Excel is not a system; it cannot handle multi-person collaboration, permission control, and process flow. This article draws on our practical experience serving over 3,000 enterprise clients.
Ten people maintaining ten Excel files, with accounts not matching at month-end, is the norm; version chaos and accidental deletion or modification are almost impossible to trace.
The hidden cost of Excel lies in manual work: repeated entry, manual reconciliation, and rework due to errors. Over a year, this far exceeds the cost of a system.
Do not ban Excel across the board. The most pragmatic approach is to let the system handle flow and validation while keeping Excel as an import/export tool.
There is no absolute right or wrong in technology selection; the best choice is the one that matches the business stage.