If you’re sitting down to create yet another spreadsheet, stop! An over-reliance on spreadsheets could be dangerous to the health of your business.
It’s been said that Excel is perhaps the most utilized business application in the world. It’s a powerful tool – no question about that. But as your business grows, relying on information from an ever-increasing number of spreadsheets is not the most accurate or efficient way to run your business. Studies bear this out:
- According to both PWC and KPMG more than 90 percent of corporate spreadsheets have material errors in them” (The Register)
- A Wall Street Journal Market Watch article notes that 88 percent of spreadsheets have errors whether created for family budgets, small business, charitable organizations or large global corporations.
The opportunity for human error jeopardizes the accuracy of a spreadsheet throughout the lifetime of the document from flaws in the design of the spreadsheet, errors occurring with ongoing use of the spreadsheet, multiple versions of a spreadsheet circulating – resulting in the wrong (or older, out of data) version being used – to name just a few.
In fact, juggling multiple spreadsheets is usually a symptom of having outgrown your accounting and other software. Data residing in your software systems should be available through reporting directly from the system.
Running reports directly from your software system significantly decreases qualitative and quantitative errors. Also, the time saved when generating reports directly from the system are dramatic.
Will a better accounting system eliminate spreadsheets forever? Probably not entirely, but your reliance on spreadsheets will be significantly reduced and your reporting will bring more accuracy for better decision-making.
Before you create another spreadsheet, consider evaluating the reporting capabilities of your current system. You may have outgrown the system and could benefit from replacing it with Adagio Financial Suite. We can help you examine the benefits of Adagio Financial Suite and Adagio Business Management Suite.