Spreadsheets are really great tools – they are fantastic for capturing data, calculations, scenario planning – but what they are not is they are not an ERP system! Despite this many business use them as such – allowing spreadsheets to be the backbone of key processes.

Here’s Ten reasons why you shouldn’t allow your spreadsheet applications to dominate your business!

1 – They are don’t follow business logic and don’t know about business processes – “what do you mean whenever we receive an order from Company ABC I have to record a reference number, check our stock and validate their account with the Finance dept? – My list doesn’t do that!”.

2 – They are not integrated – unless you come up with some whizzy code most spreadsheets are stand alone and focus specifically on the process they are setup to record “what do you mean you want my list of deliveries that I have in my spreadsheet to go and update my purchase order file and tell finance they can pay the supplier invoice?????

3 – While Excel has some great validation tools – most spreadsheets (unless configured to do so) are not built with this enabled – for example want to enter your date as 1 January 200010 – fire away!

» Read more: Ten Reasons Why Spreadsheets Will Give You Sleepless Nights!