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Moving beyond spreadsheets

Deltek ,

Spreadsheets play a pivotal role in business, but for many practices they have their challenges, from version control to errors to wasted time. Is it time to move beyond spreadsheets in your practice?

Love them or hate them, spreadsheets can be a great tool. They can be versatile, flexible, and offer a simple way to organise and analyse data. And in architecture practices, they鈥檙e still widely used.

However, spreadsheets have their shortcomings for project-based businesses. Operations are becoming increasingly complex, so for many, spreadsheets just don鈥檛 have the right capabilities to effectively regulate key processes, or manage growing volumes of data.

But what exactly are these shortcomings, how can you tell when they鈥檙e impacting your business, and what alternatives are available? To help answer these questions, Deltek spoke with finance leaders in A&E and Consulting firms about their spreadsheet challenges, and how they moved beyond them. Here are a few of the common issues they identified.

No single point of truth

One of the biggest spreadsheet shortcomings shared by the finance leaders was around version control 鈥� and, subsequently, having no single point of truth.

As spreadsheets are shared across teams, you may find people creating and sharing their own versions. Each one is then edited and saved independently of the others, and knowing which one is most up to date or accurate becomes near impossible.

And the more your practice grows, the bigger the problem can get. Data may get replicated and teams can end up working from different sources, which can have a knock-on effect on project delivery and execution. As Steve Slade, Finance Director at Buro Four, put it: 鈥淚t鈥檚 death by a thousand cells鈥�.

Inconsistency and errors

Working with multiple spreadsheets can also introduce errors, impacting projects further down the line. And the more people manually edit a document, the higher the risk of inaccuracies.

For many firms, the number of errors and spreadsheet data inconsistencies depends on how many 鈥榮preadsheet wizards鈥� are in each department. These are the people who have a really good grasp on how spreadsheets function, and how to get the best out of them.

You may have a fair few in your practice, and have higher data quality as a result. Or, you may find that you have a few colleagues who are less experienced, and you need to spend time checking data and formulae. Either way, if the quality of your data depends on the expertise of a few individuals, you may find that bottlenecks occur, projects are delayed or difficult to manage precisely, and business decisions aren鈥檛 always fully informed.

More time wasted

Spreadsheets are known for their flexibility. But when it comes to collaboration 鈥� within a practice, or beyond it 鈥� that flexibility can become a burden.

Once your spreadsheet leaves your hands and is edited by another user, the data that鈥檚 put in isn鈥檛 necessarily trustworthy, especially if it鈥檚 been touched by one of your less spreadsheet-savvy colleagues. That means you鈥檒l need to double check every cell and every formula.

And as spreadsheets don鈥檛 offer the same top-down insights as an integrated solution, they can also create barriers around resource allocation. When allocating resource by spreadsheet, our experts found they would spend extra time calling around to understand who鈥檚 available, and which teams needed more resource. This made it a challenge for them to make resourcing decisions quickly and accurately.

Move beyond the world of spreadsheets

According to our experts, most practices will reach a clear point where they outgrow their spreadsheets. This drives many to seek an alternative solution.

But knowing what those triggers are, and what solutions can help, isn鈥檛 always easy. The three challenges we鈥檝e outlined are a good indication, but you鈥檒l find more in our white paper: Beyond Spreadsheets: Achieving Collaboration, Automation, Data Accuracy and Efficiency. It鈥檚 packed full of expert insights, as well as guidance on how to move away from spreadsheets to a dedicated, automated, integrated ERP solution.