Why Excel Causes Finance Teams to Waste Time
Excel Has Limited Application
If you’re using Excel to do anything other than store data on spreadsheets, you’re hurting your business. Excel wasn’t intended for tasks like capital resource management, creating time sheets, or managing billing. A software tool specifically designed for those tasks will be much more useful to you.
Spreadsheets Are Full of Errors
Human error will creep in any time people are responsible for data entry. Market Watch reports that up to 88% of spreadsheets contain errors. No one wants to take the time to manually check spreadsheets for errors, but even with checks errors often slip by unnoticed.
When you’re handling money in Excel, a simple error can cost thousands, if not billions, of dollars. A misplaced decimal point, typing the wrong number, adding an extra zero – those errors have wide-reaching effects. You need a program that will capture and check data automatically and alert you to anything that seems out of place.
Multiple Spreadsheets and Conflicting Data
With a system using spreadsheets, it’s easy to end up with different versions of the same file These “dueling spreadsheets” make it difficult to tell which version is accurate. Multiple people editing the spreadsheet at different times leads to confusion. A centralized system that updates in real-time solves this problem.
Using Spreadsheets Wastes Time
Excel is a step-up from paper processing. But compared to business process automation software, it’s still in the stone ages. Employees using Excel need to enter data manually, which takes time, and check for errors, which takes even more time. They spend hours doing tasks automated business software could accomplish much more efficiently.
With businesses process software handling tasks you used to do manually on Excel, employees have more time to handle complex tasks like data analysis. This also speeds up the closing process at the end of each month.
Your Data Isn’t Secure
It’s impossible to securely encrypt information in Excel. Even with password protection spreadsheets can be hacked in a matter of minutes. This leaves critical financial information in danger. On top of that, storing information on employee computers means that if the computer crashes you might lose data.