Use case
A spreadsheet becomes a liability when several people need it at once, when a mistake is expensive, or when the business depends on one person understanding it. Below that, it is often the right tool.
The visible symptom is rarely the cause. These are the underlying reasons we find most often.
The process runs in a system with an audit trail, concurrent access and validation, and the logic that used to live in one person's file is documented and owned.
Context
Spreadsheet-run processes fail quietly. The formula error, the outdated copy and the departure of the person who built it are all discovered after the damage, not before.
How we solve it
Ten to twenty weeks for a business-critical process, including parallel running.
Concurrency, error cost and key-person dependency. If none apply, keep the spreadsheet: replacing a working one with software is a common and expensive mistake.
Document the rules buried in formulas, including the exceptions. This step regularly uncovers errors that have been affecting decisions for years.
Rebuilding a spreadsheet's accumulated workarounds in software preserves them permanently. Decide what the process should be before deciding what to build.
Clean at the point of migration, run in parallel briefly, and then retire the file properly. Spreadsheets that survive alongside the new system become the shadow source of truth.
Capabilities
How it works
A process before and after automation
Before: five steps, four of them manual. After: the same outcome with one human decision point and a defined exception path for when the system is unsure.
When one person uses it, mistakes are cheap and visible, and the logic is simple enough to read. Spreadsheets are fast, flexible and free: replacing one that works is a cost with no return.
Rebuilding its accumulated workarounds as permanent features. Years of exceptions get treated as requirements, and the new system inherits complexity the business had already stopped needing.
A spreadsheet becomes a liability when several people need it at once, when a mistake is expensive, or when the business depends on one person understanding it. Below that, it is often the right tool.
Spreadsheet-run processes fail quietly. The formula error, the outdated copy and the departure of the person who built it are all discovered after the damage, not before.
A critical process runs on a file that one person maintains; Multiple versions circulate and nobody is sure which is current; Errors are found downstream, weeks after they were introduced; and The file has grown to a size where it is slow and fragile
The process outgrew the tool gradually and nobody marked the point; There is no audit trail, so mistakes cannot be traced; Concurrent editing is not supported, so copies proliferate; and Business logic lives in formulas nobody has documented
The process runs in a system with an audit trail, concurrent access and validation, and the logic that used to live in one person's file is documented and owned.
Ten to twenty weeks for a business-critical process, including parallel running.
Connected
If the before state above reads like your operation, the next step is establishing which part of it is actually costing you. Describe it and we will tell you where replace spreadsheet processes would and would not help.
