Outgrown your spreadsheets? What to move to, and when a bespoke database is worth it

What are the signs a business has outgrown its spreadsheets?

Most of them are about people rather than size. If three or more of these are true, the spreadsheet is doing a job it was never built for:

• Two people overwrite each other's changes, and the folder holds files called "final", "final 2" and "final EDITED".
• Nobody can say who changed a price or a date, or when.
• Somebody spends hours a week copying rows between sheets, or into the accounts.
• The same customer appears three times, spelt three different ways.
• Only one person understands the formulas, and they are about to go on holiday.
• You cannot show a customer or subcontractor their own row without showing them everyone else's.
• Personal data sits in a file that anyone with the link can open and download.

Is a spreadsheet ever the right tool?

Often. For one person modelling numbers, a one-off analysis, or a list of a few hundred items that rarely changes, a spreadsheet is fast, flexible and already paid for. Size is rarely the issue: an Excel worksheet holds 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns (Microsoft), far more than most small businesses will ever fill. The trouble starts when several people depend on the same file, and when the file becomes the link between two other systems.

What goes wrong when a spreadsheet becomes the system?

Mostly small things, every week: a quote sent at last month's price, a job booked twice, a renewal missed because the reminder lived in somebody's head. Occasionally something large. In October 2020, Public Health England said 15,841 positive Covid-19 cases had been left out of the reported daily figures because some files "exceeded the maximum file size" its data process could load (GOV.UK, 4 October 2020). Press reports linked that limit to an old Excel file format. The lesson for a small business is the same: when a file is the pipe between systems, it can fail without telling anyone.

Where should the work go instead?

There are four common destinations, and most businesses should try them roughly in this order.

How do you choose between them?

Answer five questions about the spreadsheet you run on now. What is it actually for: selling, scheduling jobs, tracking stock or keeping compliance records? Who changes it, and who only looks? Does anybody outside the business need to see part of it? What must it connect to, such as the website, email or the accounts? And how many people would you be paying a monthly seat for?

If the answers describe a normal sales process or a normal trade, buy the product. If they describe something specific to how you work, with people outside the business who need their own view, a bespoke build starts to make sense. Our bespoke software page covers databases, portals and internal tools, and our guide to what software costs to build in the UK gives the wider price bands.

What might a bespoke database replace? A hypothetical example

Picture a training company running its courses from a shared spreadsheet: one tab for dates, one for delegates, one for certificates and invoices, edited by four people and emailed to clients every week. A bespoke version holds the same information in a database, with a screen for the office, a phone view for trainers on the day, and a login where each client sees only their own staff and certificates. The weekly email disappears, every change is logged, and invoices come from the booking rather than being typed again.

How do you move off a spreadsheet without losing anything?

Clean the data before you move it. Merge the duplicates, decide which columns you genuinely use, and give every field one owner. Import a sample first and check it with the people who use the sheet every day. Run the old file and the new system side by side for no more than two weeks, then make the spreadsheet read-only and keep it as the archive. For large or messy data, our data migration service, from £1,950, moves records with their history and merges duplicates on the way.

Not sure which way to go? Our systems audit, normally £495 and free for a limited time, looks at the spreadsheets you run on and tells you in writing whether to buy, connect or build. If the spreadsheet mainly feeds the website or the accounts, our guide to connecting a website to a CRM and accounts covers that route.

Questions about moving off spreadsheets

When should a small business stop using spreadsheets?

When several people edit the same file, decisions depend on it, and nobody fully trusts it. The usual signs are overwritten changes, duplicate customers, hours spent copying between sheets, and no record of who changed what.

What is the best alternative to Excel for managing customers?

For most small businesses, a CRM, and several publish free plans for up to two users. Trades and field businesses are usually better served by job management software. A bespoke system is worth it only when no product fits the way you work.

Should we use Airtable or have a database built?

Try Airtable or a similar tool first if your team is happy to design and maintain it, and most of the people involved need to edit. Have one built when outsiders need their own login, many people only need to view, or the process is too specific for a general tool.

How much does it cost to turn a spreadsheet into a database?

With Werehouse Media, a bespoke application such as an internal tool or client portal with its own database starts from £4,500, and moving and cleaning the existing data starts from £1,950. Every build is fixed in writing after the systems audit.