A spreadsheet should become software when several people edit it every day, when it holds customer or money records that must be right, when it needs different views for different people, or when one person is the only one who understands it. A spreadsheet should stay a spreadsheet when one person uses it to think, calculate or plan, and a mistake would be easy to spot and cheap to fix.
The warning signs
A spreadsheet has become a system when:
- Several people edit it at once, and someone has overwritten someone else's work.
- There is a "do not touch" tab, or colour codes only one person understands.
- It drives actions: who to call, what to invoice, what to deliver next.
- Data is copied in from other tools by hand, every day or every week.
- Clients or partners need to see part of it, so you export and send a copy.
- It has broken before, and nobody noticed for a while.
Three or more of these, and it is worth looking at software.
5 spreadsheets that should be software
1. The sales pipeline spreadsheet
Leads, stages, owners, next steps. It drives who gets called and when, several people update it, and a missed row is a lost client. This is what a CRM is for. See CRM setup and migration.
2. The client onboarding tracker
Who has signed, paid, sent documents and had their kick-off call. The client usually has to be chased for each item. A portal lets clients complete it themselves and shows you who is stuck. See client portals.
3. The job or project tracker shared with clients
If you export it or screenshot it to send updates, clients should be able to see their own part directly, and only their own part.
4. The weekly numbers sheet
Figures copied every Monday from the CRM, ads, payments and project tools. It is out of date by Tuesday. A dashboard that pulls from the real sources removes the copying and the errors. See dashboards and reporting.
5. The staff scheduling or allocation sheet
Who is working on what, when. Once it involves several people's availability, clashes and client deadlines, it needs rules the spreadsheet cannot enforce. That is an internal tool.
5 spreadsheets that are fine as they are
1. Financial models and forecasts
One person building scenarios to think through a decision. Spreadsheets are the best tool ever made for this.
2. One-off analysis
Pulling data together to answer a question once. If you find yourself doing the same analysis every week, that is when it becomes a dashboard.
3. Personal planning
Your own to-do lists, content ideas, reading lists. Low stakes and only you use it.
4. Early-stage processes that are still changing
If you are still working out how a process should run, a spreadsheet is the right place to experiment. Build software once the process has settled.
5. Simple reference lists
Supplier contacts, equipment lists, a price list only you maintain. Rarely edited, easy to check, nothing depends on it in real time.
The middle step
Before building software, try to connect the spreadsheet to the tools around it so data stops being copied by hand. Sometimes that is enough. When it is not, because permissions, views for different people or reliability are the real problem, that is the point where software pays for itself.
Before you replace one
Write down what the spreadsheet actually does: every tab, what each column means, who uses it and what decisions it drives. That list becomes most of the brief for the software, and it often reveals columns nobody has used for a year. Our guide on how to write a brief for a software build walks through the rest.
