Small business often start out utilizing Excel- but that’s only doable up until a point. Like every adolescent eventually becomes an adult, your business needs to evolve and grow. Find out why the smartest organisations are employing cloud accounting software instead.

Why Excel isn’t a long-term solution

1. Doubling-up of transactions

In Excel you don’t get a alerting if you try to enter the same invoice number or invoice number twice, whereas you would if you used accounting application. Doubling up on accounting transactions can get you into a real mess.

2. Time consuming

It is time consuming to set up a detailed, useful spreadsheet. You need to have the end result in brain before you even start and then work out a designing that they are able to get you that purpose outcome. A plenty of day is wasted if you are part style through setting up a spreadsheet simply to realise that it can only do half the job you need it to do. For example, you might be able to set up a spreadsheet that tracks all of your revenues and expenses, “but its” tricky and day eating to define it up to track taxation codes for your Business Activity Statement as well.

3. No audit trail

If more than one person is entering information into a spreadsheet it is difficult to tell who has entered or changed information. This leaves the door wide open for fraud to occur.

4. Costly errors

Excel spreadsheets can be linked to other Excel spreadsheets, which can save you hour. Nonetheless it is easy to associate a cell incorrectly which results in errors that can be hard to see. You could be using the same spreadsheet for months without realising it is picking up incorrect figures from another spreadsheet. Just like in Reason# 1, Excel doesn’t warn you of possibilities errors. A quick internet search for” spreadsheet blunders” depicts just how costly some of these errors can be.

5. You still need to invest time into learning how to use Excel properly

You can teach yourself how to use Excel and set up spreadsheets, however with such easy to use accounting software on the market now, isn’t your time better spent study software that will do most of the hard work for you? For instance, applying software with automatic bank feeds, such as Xero, can reduce time spent on manual data entry once set up correctly.

It’s about letting your business grow

While it can often be hard to alter the way you do business and embrace change, the potential rewards are huge.

Excel was simply not built to replace accounting software – so it’s time to give your business the room to grow and succeed, without restrictions.