Excel Migration

Why do so many businesses use Excel?

Excel was once heralded as the answer to all of our office problems. Log sign in times? Excel. Track budgets? Excel. Build a report? Excel. Run the end-to-end production process at a manufacturing organisation? That's where you might start to struggle...

Excel is without a doubt, an incredibly powerful tool and rightfully has it's place in many organisaions today. However, it was never meant to run large, complex businesses. As companies grow, introduce new services and take on more staff, those trusty spreadsheets can start to grow to unmanageable levels and before you know it, a single typo has broken the whole thing and you've lost that critical data forever. Dramatic? Perhaps. But not as dramatic as the fallout can be when this actually happens - and it does happen.

Excel is great for crunching numbers, making lists and analysing data and because it's a program that's so engrained into our workplace culture, it's naturally the first choice for many of us when we need to do anything with data. However, many organisations are waking up to the fact that not everything can be done in Excel and there are much less risky, more intelligent solutions out there.

How to identify when it's time to move away from Excel

Whilst there are no hard and fast rules that dictate when you should move away from Excel, there are some telltale signs to look out for:

Your spreadsheets are becoming increasingly complex

If your files are flooded with advanced formulas, macros or multiple linked worksheets you're moving into risky territory. One mistake in the file has the potential to break everything else. You're also likely facing performance degradation due to the many actions the spreadsheet is having to process.

Only one or two people know how the spreadsheet(s) actually work

And what happens when they go on holiday...or worse...leave the company? It's typical to have a 'techie' or two in the office who you go to for all things technical including your spreadsheets. However, if you've found yourself calling them out of sheer desperation when they're off because you need something fixed and no one else can do it, that suggests you need some contingency and you need it fast.

Version control

This problem is somewhat mitigated since the introduction of Excel online but for those who still use the desktop version of Excel, the problem remains. If you find yourself trawling through multiple files with names such as Final_v4.xlsx, Final_v4_Actual.xlsx, Final_v4_Actual_Really_Final_This_Time.xlsx, this is a solid indicator that you would benefit from centralised data, stored in the cloud that doesn't need to be saved offline.

You can't move Excel data easily

If copy and paste...or worse...manual typing is the way you move your data from Excel into other systems, automation could save you many hours every week.

Performance is suffering

Are your Excel files taking minutes just to open? Do they crash regularly? Are you trying to work with thousands upon thousands of rows? These are all signs you've reached the practical limitations of Excel and you're into risky territory.

Reporting is taking longer every week

If you find your reports are seemingly taking longer and longer to produce because you're having to combine data from more and more different files, you should know that reports can be generated within seconds with bespoke software.

The bespoke alternatives

There are many alternatives to Excel depending on what you are actually using it for.

Databases

For basic, non complex and small databases that only require a small amount of rows and columns, Excel is not the worst choice. However, if you're storing data that runs into the hundreds or thousands of columns and rows then an alternative, bespoke solution is probably a better fit.

A bespoke solution can provide:

Centralised data storage

Multiple user acces

User permissions

Advanced search and filtering

Audit trails

Integration with existing systems

Consistent performance even with masses of data

Customer Relationship Management

Some businesses start out tracking their customers, enquiries, opportunities and deals in Excel and whilst fine for small volumes, it is not an efficient way to do so and is in fact inherently risky when the file starts growing. It just takes one person to add a record to the wrong column and you then potentially open up to every subsequent record being recorded against the wrong customer.

A bespoke CRM solution can offer:

A way to store, organise and manage customer information

Search and filtering

Sales pipeline tracking

Customer interaction logging

Deal management 

Automated communications

Reports and dashboards

Inventory Management

Managing inventory in Excel can be a complete nightmare. Trying to manually keep on top of stock levels, purchase orders and inventory movement is incredibly time consuming and prone to mistakes. For companies experiencing growth or introducing new product lines, this can become even more complex.

A custom solution can:

Automatically track inventory in real time

Consolidate inventory across multiple systems

Automate stock updates

Integrate with supplier systems

Generate barcode labels

Generate dispatch and delivery notes

Automate customer comms

Project Management 

Excel wasn't built to manage large projects. If you're trying to use for thing like task allocation, deadline tracking and status updates you've probably already realised that. Sheets highlighted in various colours of red, amber and green, cells stretched to within an inch of their life to accommodate all the updates on that project that's been dragging on for months. Shudder.

Features of a bespoke solution could include:

Task management and allocation

Team collaboration

Progress tracking

File sharing

Notifications

Reporting

Reporting & Business Intelligence

Reporting and analysis is one of the most common activities that Excel is synonymous with. And for good reason. You can complete simple calculations, set up advanced formulas, use pivot tables and visualise the data through charts and graphs.

Excel begins to struggle however, when your reporting becomes more complex. If you're pulling data from multiple systems, manually consolidating spreadsheets and creating reports that need to satisfy both senior decision makers looking for high level KPIs and operational teams wanting to drill into the detail, the process can quickly become time consuming and error prone.

A bespoke reporting & business intelligence solution could incorporate:

Live dashboards tailored to different audiences

Automated reporting based on pre defined data fields & regularity

KPI monitoring

Interactive charts

Data from multiple sources consolidated in one place

Finance 

Again, Excel can be perfectly adequate for managing finances including invoices, payments and status but only for transactions of a certain volume. The human error aspect also features heavily here, especially when manually adding payments - mistakes can be catastrophic.

A bespoke finance system can offer:

Automated invoicing

Bank reconciliation

VAT reporting 

Purchase ledger management

Financial reporting

Integration with payroll systems

Challenges moving away from Excel (and how to overcome them)

For many businesses, the thought of moving away from Excel can be daunting, even incomprehensible. And if you've used this trusty tool for years, for multiple activities, that's completely understandable. 

The reality however, is that Excel spreadsheets are not inherently problematic, it remains a powerful and effective program for standard data related tasks. The challenges come when your business becomes dependent on Excel, when it becomes so deeply embedded in your day to day operations that you get hot flushes when you imagine your file corrupting. Fortunately, migrating away from Excel doesn't have to happen overnight - you can take it slowly and methodically, in a way that makes sense to you and your users.

Challenge 1 - 'We've invested years into these spreadsheets'

We understand the blood, sweat and tears that goes into spreadsheets - we've been there ourselves after all. The good news is, these efforts are not simply discarded and forgotten about. Rather, they can be used as the blueprint for your new solution. The processes, procedures and calculations in your Excel files can be taken and digitised, ensuring your new software aligns with what you were already doing, just better.

Challenge 2 - 'My staff only know Excel'

Following on from the above, this is also a valid concern. However, for many businesses who are just looking to digitise the processes and calculations within their spreadsheets, this is a moot point because the processes themselves will be the same - just quicker! If there's more to it than simply digitising the existing processes and workflows, any good development agency will ensure staff are thoroughly trained on the new system and know exactly where to go for help.

Challenge 3 - 'We're scared of loosing our data'

This one is a bit of a catch 22 because staying with Excel is also putting you at risk of loosing your data and scarily, this can happen on the back of a single typo or because a file suddenly corrupts. When undertaking migration projects, data should be backed up somewhere safe, cleaned and validated prior to import which again, any good development company will do. The cleaned data will then be moved into a more secure, flexible database retaining your historical data and giving you a clean, well formatted way to view, manage and analyse it.

Challenge 4 - 'We can't afford the disruption'

Valid. When companies decide to take a big bang approach, there can sometimes be disruption, especially if something goes wrong and there's no rollback plan. However, if you want to err on the side of caution, you can break the migration down into smaller chunks. Moving one process at a time, one department at a time or whatever it is that makes sense for your business.

Challenge 5 - 'Change is too expensive'

Bespoke software does require investment. However, do you know how expensive your current methods of using Excel actually are? If you sit down and work out how much time and effort will be saved moving from manual data entry, report building and duplicate work to automatic, you might be pleasantly surprised with what you'll actually be saving in the first one, two or three years by going bespoke. 

To finish

Excel remains a popular and viable system for businesses of all shapes and sizes and will have it's place well into the future. However, for growing businesses or those who work outside of 'standard' procedures, Excel can become problematic and risky. The earlier this is identified and acted upon, the better because spreadsheets only get bigger and more complex over time. Making the move doesn't have to be an all or nothing approach - you can go as slow and steady at a pace that suits your specific scenario.

See also

Excel - the run down