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Would you run your small business on Excel?

Renae

Renae

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I ask because I happen to know of one, that runs all their data, accounting, sales, inventory ENTIRELY ON EXCEL. I happen to know that the document manager is currently trying to implement a major overhaul to a real database commercial grade database solution. This person has run into a huge roadblock of the upper management "Not having time" to learn a new system and is about to convert everything back into excel because "Excel is better".

So business people, what are your thoughts? IS the document manager right to move the company off excel or is upper management right? I have little personal experience in using excel on a small business scale so I couldn't say either way.
 
Renae said:
I ask because I happen to know of one, that runs all their data, accounting, sales, inventory ENTIRELY ON EXCEL. I happen to know that the document manager is currently trying to implement a major overhaul to a real database commercial grade database solution. This person has run into a huge roadblock of the upper management "Not having time" to learn a new system and is about to convert everything back into excel because "Excel is better".

So business people, what are your thoughts? IS the document manager right to move the company off excel or is upper management right? I have little personal experience in using excel on a small business scale so I couldn't say either way.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't use Excel as a primary for Accounting, Inventory or Sales ... but that's just me.

Excel has row limits and File Size limits.

Use a Commercial Database ... it's not hard to learn ... everything has a tutorial in-line
 
Renae said:
I ask because I happen to know of one, that runs all their data, accounting, sales, inventory ENTIRELY ON EXCEL. I happen to know that the document manager is currently trying to implement a major overhaul to a real database commercial grade database solution. This person has run into a huge roadblock of the upper management "Not having time" to learn a new system and is about to convert everything back into excel because "Excel is better".

So business people, what are your thoughts? IS the document manager right to move the company off excel or is upper management right? I have little personal experience in using excel on a small business scale so I couldn't say either way.
Click to expand...

I can't IMAGINE a company running off Excel. There are programs galore than don't require the pick-and-shovel approach Excel requires in order to run a business. Payroll, billing, inventory control, profit-and-loss, etc., etc., all in place. This is an example of old-fashioned thinking holding back progress.
 
MaggieD said:
I can't IMAGINE a company running off Excel. There are programs galore than don't require the pick-and-shovel approach Excel requires in order to run a business. Payroll, billing, inventory control, profit-and-loss, etc., etc., all in place. This is an example of old-fashioned thinking holding back progress.
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I will have to totally agree with you.
 
Renae said:
I ask because I happen to know of one, that runs all their data, accounting, sales, inventory ENTIRELY ON EXCEL. I happen to know that the document manager is currently trying to implement a major overhaul to a real database commercial grade database solution. This person has run into a huge roadblock of the upper management "Not having time" to learn a new system and is about to convert everything back into excel because "Excel is better".

So business people, what are your thoughts? IS the document manager right to move the company off excel or is upper management right? I have little personal experience in using excel on a small business scale so I couldn't say either way.
Click to expand...

IMO, Excel is great for scratch paper. But, I would not recommend using it for data management, and I certainly would not recommend using it exclusively. There are quite a few highly specialized software packages out there that are ideal for the specific tasks required to perform.
 
Renae said:
I ask because I happen to know of one, that runs all their data, accounting, sales, inventory ENTIRELY ON EXCEL. I happen to know that the document manager is currently trying to implement a major overhaul to a real database commercial grade database solution. This person has run into a huge roadblock of the upper management "Not having time" to learn a new system and is about to convert everything back into excel because "Excel is better".

So business people, what are your thoughts? IS the document manager right to move the company off excel or is upper management right? I have little personal experience in using excel on a small business scale so I couldn't say either way.
Click to expand...

I had a similar situation in one of my first jobs, it was a furniture warehouse run by traditional Chinese people. They didn't want to advance and kept ordering furniture in bulk from china regardless of if they already had it since they had no idea what they had in the warehouse and they didn't even have a truck/delivery tracking system except for the drivers to call in and say it was delivered. My operations manager said they were likely running multiple businesses and the warehouse workers were likely illegal preventing them from seriously considering my ideas to technologically upgrade the warehouse with systems I had in mind for them. At least I was able to get them to track some things in Excel. Which they didn't even use! Needless to say, I quit.
 
Renae said:
I ask because I happen to know of one, that runs all their data, accounting, sales, inventory ENTIRELY ON EXCEL. I happen to know that the document manager is currently trying to implement a major overhaul to a real database commercial grade database solution. This person has run into a huge roadblock of the upper management "Not having time" to learn a new system and is about to convert everything back into excel because "Excel is better".

So business people, what are your thoughts? IS the document manager right to move the company off excel or is upper management right? I have little personal experience in using excel on a small business scale so I couldn't say either way.
Click to expand...

This is a disaster waiting to happen.

That said, I did meet a guy last week who mocked up architecture drafts on Excel so the Drawing Monkeys had guidance.

In the long run, more time and money will be spent making this Rube Goldberg thing do what it has to than would be spent installing a robust dedicated program. For most applications, these are commodities and not that costly.
 
Iceberg Slim said:
This is a disaster waiting to happen.

That said, I did meet a guy last week who mocked up architecture drafts on Excel so the Drawing Monkeys had guidance.

In the long run, more time and money will be spent making this Rube Goldberg thing do what it has to than would be spent installing a robust dedicated program. For most applications, these are commodities and not that costly.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's been the big hurdle. Every month numbers don't add up across departments. End of month tally's take 2 days to complete.

I do NOT get people fearing upgrading to better tech.
 
Renae said:
I ask because I happen to know of one, that runs all their data, accounting, sales, inventory ENTIRELY ON EXCEL. I happen to know that the document manager is currently trying to implement a major overhaul to a real database commercial grade database solution. This person has run into a huge roadblock of the upper management "Not having time" to learn a new system and is about to convert everything back into excel because "Excel is better".

So business people, what are your thoughts? IS the document manager right to move the company off excel or is upper management right? I have little personal experience in using excel on a small business scale so I couldn't say either way.
Click to expand...

I probably would.

Now, let me clarify that. I probably would because excel is my crutch. It's the primary thing I've used in my career, and I've gotten to a point with it where I can take it behind a shed and do naughty things to it in order for it to function in ways that it's not exactly best suited for. At this point, trying to figure out how to do something challenging in Excel is a bit easier for me than trying to pick up Access from relative scratch, even though in some instances I know Access would be better suited for it. Note, this is not good. Ultimately it has worked for me in my limited capacity, but it's by no means the most efficient or likely smartest way to go about it in the long run (its for this reason I'm finally pushing myself to transition things over to Access and begin to self teach myself that like I did excel).

Now, depending on the size and scope of the small business in question, I imagine the better option is likely to either go with Access or a dedicated piece of small business software that handles this kind of thing. Most likely, the latter would be preferable as you wouldn't need to build it form the ground up quite as much. In either case, there should be options to pull in most of the excel data you already have. While there would be a learning curve, the potential benefits of going to a true database would likely outweigh it. Plus, in reality, that learning curve is probably rather small once you actually get into it, and the hesistation is more a normal fear of change.
 
Renae said:
I ask because I happen to know of one, that runs all their data, accounting, sales, inventory ENTIRELY ON EXCEL. I happen to know that the document manager is currently trying to implement a major overhaul to a real database commercial grade database solution. This person has run into a huge roadblock of the upper management "Not having time" to learn a new system and is about to convert everything back into excel because "Excel is better".

So business people, what are your thoughts? IS the document manager right to move the company off excel or is upper management right? I have little personal experience in using excel on a small business scale so I couldn't say either way.
Click to expand...

I probably would.

Now, let me clarify that. I probably would because excel is my crutch. It's the primary thing I've used in my career, and I've gotten to a point with it where I can take it behind a shed and do naughty things to it in order for it to function in ways that it's not exactly best suited for. At this point, trying to figure out how to do something challenging in Excel is a bit easier for me than trying to pick up Access from relative scratch, even though in some instances I know Access would be better suited for it. Note, this is not good. Ultimately it has worked for me in my limited capacity, but it's by no means the most efficient or likely smartest way to go about it in the long run (its for this reason I'm finally pushing myself to transition things over to Access and begin to self teach myself that like I did excel).

Now, depending on the size and scope of the small business in question, I imagine the better option is likely to either go with Access or a dedicated piece of small business software that handles this kind of thing. Most likely, the latter would be preferable as you wouldn't need to build it form the ground up quite as much. In either case, there should be options to pull in most of the excel data you already have. While there would be a learning curve, the potential benefits of going to a true database would likely outweigh it. Plus, in reality, that learning curve is probably rather small once you actually get into it, and the hesistation is more a normal fear of change.
 
Zyphlin said:
I probably would.

Now, let me clarify that. I probably would because excel is my crutch. It's the primary thing I've used in my career, and I've gotten to a point with it where I can take it behind a shed and do naughty things to it in order for it to function in ways that it's not exactly best suited for. At this point, trying to figure out how to do something challenging in Excel is a bit easier for me than trying to pick up Access from relative scratch, even though in some instances I know Access would be better suited for it. Note, this is not good. Ultimately it has worked for me in my limited capacity, but it's by no means the most efficient or likely smartest way to go about it in the long run (its for this reason I'm finally pushing myself to transition things over to Access and begin to self teach myself that like I did excel).

Now, depending on the size and scope of the small business in question, I imagine the better option is likely to either go with Access or a dedicated piece of small business software that handles this kind of thing. Most likely, the latter would be preferable as you wouldn't need to build it form the ground up quite as much. In either case, there should be options to pull in most of the excel data you already have. While there would be a learning curve, the potential benefits of going to a true database would likely outweigh it. Plus, in reality, that learning curve is probably rather small once you actually get into it, and the hesistation is more a normal fear of change.
Click to expand...

The program in question is called "Fishbowl".
 
Renae said:
Yeah that's been the big hurdle. Every month numbers don't add up across departments. End of month tally's take 2 days to complete.

I do NOT get people fearing upgrading to better tech.
Click to expand...

You can be a hero.....

You should be able to calculate the man hour cost of the monthly reconciliation.......then get quotes on some enterprise software (including support contracts).

Don't assume your bosses are bosses because they are smart.
 
This is my exact field of study. The company should move off of Excel but re-evaluate how it is being rolled out. Sounds there was insufficient training on the new system or cost and efficiency benefits were not clearly communicated to upper management. It is also they are like almost all business people and just really bad with technology. Unless you business is only one or two people you should be using Excel as a database, from the sounds of it the company is large enough to warrant a full-fledged solution and the company must upgrade.
 
True story: I worked for one of the largest consumer packaged goods companies in the world, and replicated our ERP system (just the order / logistics side) in Excel while we were doing an unrealistically quick SAP implementation. Immediately after that, I replicated the warehouse management software in Excel, while they implemented a new software package for that. It was a fun two years, let me tell you...hehe

If you have a good Excel wizard / VBA macro writer, it can be done...and if you are talking small businesses, it's a lot cheaper than buying a fancy ERP system. But, given how easy it is for users to mess it up (unless you spend a ton of time building protection into your workbook), it's not advisable unless you know you can control access to it. Also running complicated macros can take a long time in Excel. Using macros to input formulas makes it run faster, but your true ERP system will be a lot better if you're dealing with large corporate data sets.
 
Iceberg Slim said:
You can be a hero.....

You should be able to calculate the man hour cost of the monthly reconciliation.......then get quotes on some enterprise software (including support contracts).

Don't assume your bosses are bosses because they are smart.
Click to expand...

It really isn't my job, seriously it's not.
 
Carjosse said:
This is my exact field of study. The company should move off of Excel but re-evaluate how it is being rolled out. Sounds there was insufficient training on the new system or cost and efficiency benefits were not clearly communicated to upper management. It is also they are like almost all business people and just really bad with technology. Unless you business is only one or two people you should be using Excel as a database, from the sounds of it the company is large enough to warrant a full-fledged solution and the company must upgrade.
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The accounting manager skipped the training, which was paid for and provided.
 
Renae said:
The accounting manager skipped the training, which was paid for and provided.
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Then I strongly suggest they start looking into finding a new accounting manager.
 
It all depends on scale and what you're using it for. If you have the time to really learn it it's a powerful tool for organizing and visualizing data. It's certainly not suitable as an automated inventory tracking tool or for things like accounting.

My wife owns a small website/graphic design firm. She has a couple dozen clients and does several major projects a year. It's all services so there's no inventory. I used to keep her billing and accounting information in excel but went to Quickbooks a couple of years ago. Costs about 20 bucks a months and has made life a ton easier.
 
Renae said:
So business people, what are your thoughts? IS the document manager right to move the company off excel or is upper management right? I have little personal experience in using excel on a small business scale so I couldn't say either way.
Click to expand...
I could understand it for a small start-up or one-man-band style businesses but if they’re of the size to justify at least two levels of management, I’d definitely say they should be using more robust solutions for this kind of thing. As others have pointed out, there are plenty of solutions out there dedicated to exactly these kind of tasks so there shouldn’t be any trouble finding something that suits their needs and budget.

Resistance to change is a big sticking point though and it does typically come from either end a business, either end users not wanting to change how they work and, as in this case, senior management not having the foresight to see the cost in time and money as the long-term investments they should be.
 
HonestJoe said:
I could understand it for a small start-up or one-man-band style businesses but if they’re of the size to justify at least two levels of management, I’d definitely say they should be using more robust solutions for this kind of thing. As others have pointed out, there are plenty of solutions out there dedicated to exactly these kind of tasks so there shouldn’t be any trouble finding something that suits their needs and budget.

Resistance to change is a big sticking point though and it does typically come from either end a business, either end users not wanting to change how they work and, as in this case, senior management not having the foresight to see the cost in time and money as the long-term investments they should be.
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It is usually a good assumption that business people whether high or low level are strongly resistant to technological change and understanding. On the flip side tech people are really bad at understanding businesses. It is why my major exists.
 
Renae said:
I ask because I happen to know of one, that runs all their data, accounting, sales, inventory ENTIRELY ON EXCEL. I happen to know that the document manager is currently trying to implement a major overhaul to a real database commercial grade database solution. This person has run into a huge roadblock of the upper management "Not having time" to learn a new system and is about to convert everything back into excel because "Excel is better".

So business people, what are your thoughts? IS the document manager right to move the company off excel or is upper management right? I have little personal experience in using excel on a small business scale so I couldn't say either way.
Click to expand...

Before computers your Standard Oil's, General Electric's and Ford Motor Companies were run on ledger paper so sure, a small business can operate on Excel. I even recommend it for some of my SMALL clients. The problems come in when you have to change something. A mid year change in sales tax rate, for example, can be extremely complicated to implement if you haven't planned ahead for it when building the workbook. That's why I only recommend it for people who are just starting out, don't have employees and don't have much in the way of volume.

I've got a behavioral health specialist that I use Excel for because it's easy for her. If she has 10 transactions a month it's a busy month for her and excel gives her what she needs.
 
Renae said:
I ask because I happen to know of one, that runs all their data, accounting, sales, inventory ENTIRELY ON EXCEL. I happen to know that the document manager is currently trying to implement a major overhaul to a real database commercial grade database solution. This person has run into a huge roadblock of the upper management "Not having time" to learn a new system and is about to convert everything back into excel because "Excel is better".

So business people, what are your thoughts? IS the document manager right to move the company off excel or is upper management right? I have little personal experience in using excel on a small business scale so I couldn't say either way.
Click to expand...

Depends on the size and scope of the business. It can get unwieldy at a certain point. In smaller business's it's perfectly fine.
 
Renae said:
She is' the CEO's wife and cofounder. (not kidding here)
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Then there is not much that can happen, other than wait and see how badly it will fail.
 
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