Spreadsheets have been a big part of business for a long time, there is no denying that. But is your reliance on spreadsheets impacting the growth of your business?
In this blog, we take a look at some of the signs that your business needs to make spreadsheets a thing of the past!
You have data everywhere, literally
If you go and ask someone for a critical piece of business information, how long does it take them to come back to you? The chances are, if you’re reporting off the back of spreadsheets, this could be a long time.
The use of spreadsheets often leads to many data silos, making it difficult for others in the company to get at the information they need. Also, each person is likely to have their own version of a spreadsheet, which may be completely out of step with each other. So can you really be sure you’re looking at accurate information?
Whilst this may be OK for some; if you’re looking to grow your business or perhaps even streamline, all these delays can add up. They could ultimately lose you some of your contracts or prevent you from getting new business in. Which in these Covid times, is not a position anyone would want to be in.
Period end reporting is a pain
For most businesses, month-end or year-end reporting is a big deal. This is the one thing which can give you a good indicator of how your business is doing. But if this process itself is starting to take days or even stretching into weeks, then there is something wrong.
This usually happens when your business has grown, but you’re still relying on the good old spreadsheet. It may have served your needs perfectly when there were just a few of you, but now you’re a much larger team, is that still the case?
Again it’s all about knowing the financial information is accurate and available in real-time. The more versions of the truth you have, the more likely you are to make mistakes and the longer it takes to recover from them.
Productivity is down
Let’s be honest here, spreadsheets are a drain on your time and the time of your staff. They may seem like they are easy to use and give you all of what you need, but they often lead to a lot of re-keying of information and can cause productivity bottlenecks. This ultimately costs your business money.
Why is this? This is because spreadsheets are brilliant at capturing information that is of that moment. They are not however really geared up to look at more complex things such as forecasting or anything that requires complex analysis. Trying to do this in a spreadsheet takes time and can result in mistakes being made, this is where the productivity issues can creep in.
This becomes even more apparent when the person who was the ‘go-to’ for that particular set of data leaves the business. You are left with a spreadsheet that people take weeks to try and figure out, or worse have to abandon and start over with.
Your profitability figures are wrong
This is the one thing that any business owner dreads. You think your business is doing really well, but then something happens and you realise that the figures in your spreadsheet are way off.
It could be something as simple as a mistakenly placed decimal point that costs you your business. No, this is not an exaggeration. It is estimated that some 88% of spreadsheets have errors in them!
With that level of inaccuracy, we really believe that you need to look for alternatives, for the health of your business.
What is the alternative?
An ERP system has traditionally been seen to be a massive expense to small a small business. However, they are no longer a tool which was only available to the higher turnover businesses. There is literally something which can work for every size and type of business.
But it’s the point mentioned above where they prove their worth. You have data in one place, that doesn’t cause a dip in productivity and best of all, you know the information you get is going to be accurate at that point in time. Giving you far more confidence to grow your business.
If you’ve recognised these points in your business, why not get in touch with us to see how we can help you?