What mission critical spreadsheets do you use?

[charlieappsaru]

Hi there

I'm interested to hear in what spreadsheets people use, and how critical they are to their business' success...

I'm looking to identify a common spreadsheet use, and completely automate it using tech to provide more accurate insights, make decision making easier... what would you love to be automated?

Any and all feedback is appreciated

 

[fisicx]

None at all. If I did need something mission critical I’d use a project planner. But I’ve got a whiteboard and lots of coloured pens.

 

[japancool]

I'm looking to identify a common spreadsheet use, and completely automate it using tech to provide more accurate insights, make decision making easier... what would you love to be automated?

If I need any automation, I can do it myself. It is, after all, what I do in my day job.

 

[AllSpiritual]

Depends what you want to apply it to? there are spreadsheets for everything.
I use different spreadsheets (or tabs) for different things, or critical to me is website data, for which I use google tools for instance.
Can i ask what it is you need to track?

 

[charlieappsaru]

Depends what you want to apply it to? there are spreadsheets for everything.
I use different spreadsheets (or tabs) for different things, or critical to me is website data, for which I use google tools for instance.
Can i ask what it is you need to track?

I'm not looking for spreadsheets so I can apply them to my own business - I am trying to identify spreadsheets that I can take, and turn into a SaaS offering, by adding predictive insights, and complete automation of work - flows.

 

[johndon68]

I have one that I use to track sales but it integrates directly with my accounts program (Sage) so the automation is already there.

 

[AllSpiritual]

I'm not looking for spreadsheets so I can apply them to my own business - I am trying to identify spreadsheets that I can take, and turn into a SaaS offering, by adding predictive insights, and complete automation of work - flows.

Ah ok fair one.
Sounds a big task and a huge scope. Are you focusing on a particular business area?

 

[Ethan39]

Here at UKBF we tend to keep as much as possible inside the Atlassian suite of tools (not an endorsement, we just really like their kit):

Collaboration software for software, IT and business teams | Atlassian

Atlassian's team collaboration software like Jira, Confluence and Trello help teams organize, discuss, and complete shared work.

www.atlassian.com

It fulfils the roles of service management, project management, CRM, documentation storage and a host of other items.

I know this isn't a direct answer to your question, but it's a SaaS tool with automation, built-in workflows and the ability to easily see different insights in your data pools; all of which seems to be what you're talking about replicating.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I use some standard download templates for VAT expenses and rental property financials.

They are pretty hotch-potch (I've just remembered the property one is in dollars, and spells things wrong) - but they are adequate for my needs.

I've just taken a peek at Excel's own templates, which are quite varied - I guess you are looking for businesses with complex/specific requirements?

 

[charlieappsaru]

Here at UKBF we tend to keep as much as possible inside the Atlassian suite of tools (not an endorsement, we just really like their kit):


It fulfils the roles of service management, project management, CRM, documentation storage and a host of other items.

I know this isn't a direct answer to your question, but it's a SaaS tool with automation, built-in workflows and the ability to easily see different insights in your data pools; all of which seems to be what you're talking about replicating.

Thanks Ethan - yes, we love Jira as well.

I could never compete with the company, but what I can do is find niche-specific workflows that Jira doesn't enable, and capture that market.

That is my intention. I'm aware majority of people probably have a good deal of automation already, but across industries there are little inefficiencies/manual processes that can be optimised, just got to identify them, and this is apart of that

 

[charlieappsaru]

I use some standard download templates for VAT expenses and rental property financials.

They are pretty hotch-potch (I've just remembered the property one is in dollars, and spells things wrong) - but they are adequate for my needs.

I've just taken a peek at Excel's own templates, which are quite varied - I guess you are looking for businesses with complex/specific requirements?

Yes, that's exactly right.

I'm less bothered about simple templates/excel trackers, and more interested in finding niche-specific spreadsheets that haven't been converted to a SaaS offering/have been converted, and have room for significant improvement

 

[charlieappsaru]

Ah ok fair one.
Sounds a big task and a huge scope. Are you focusing on a particular business area?

I'm trying to be quite general in my attack. I've spoken to real-estate people, other engineers, HR, etc. Once I've identified an opportunity, I'll then validate it, so no specific focus.

 

[Newchodge]

I'm not looking for spreadsheets so I can apply them to my own business - I am trying to identify spreadsheets that I can take, and turn into a SaaS offering, by adding predictive insights, and complete automation of work - flows.

I use loads of spreadsheets. I design what I need and need nothing else.

 

[charlieappsaru]

I use loads of spreadsheets. I design what I need and need nothing else.

Is there a one you use most/is most business critical?

 

[Newchodge]

Is there a one you use most/is most business critical?

Not particularly. I use the ones that meet the needs of the moment.

 

[Kerwin]

I'm about to create a spreadsheet with LibreOffice Calc to determine how much I will likely pay for cloud hosting using Amazon Web Services. I would count that as mission-critical as my whole business plan relies on having accurate numbers for these costs.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I had no idea the modern business used speadsheets
@Ozzy explained that his daughter runs her business on a phone, so spreadsheets are museum pieces
You see Boss I do listen to what you say??

 

[Deleted member 335660]

In terms of mission critical then Cashflow spreadsheet is my major one. Most accounting packages do sales analysis and stock control.

 

[fisicx]

Why spreadsheets?

Surely project management tools would be better for mission critical processes.

 

[Kerwin]

Why spreadsheets?

Surely project management tools would be better for mission critical processes.

I've been using Asana and Obsidian for note-taking, planning and documenting more detail.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I had no idea the modern business used speadsheets
@Ozzy explained that his daughter runs her business on a phone, so spreadsheets are museum pieces
You see Boss I do listen to what you say??

You can do spreadsheets on a mobile.

Personally I struggle with it, but a friend happily reads and edits very complex sheets on a mobile

 

[Ozzy]

explained that his daughter runs her business on a phone, so spreadsheets are museum pieces

As for as my daughters micro business is concerned, yep she uses apps on her phone for financial management and communicating with clients. She doesn't need spreadsheets.

We use Excel for some stuff, but if I find we are using spreadsheets more than a few times for a task I do ask my colleagues to build an automated solution to produce that report automatically. I don't want to waste resource paying a member of staff to tinker with spreadsheets.

 

[Ethan39]

As for as my daughters micro business is concerned, yep she uses apps on her phone for financial management and communicating with clients. She doesn't need spreadsheets.

We use Excel for some stuff, but if I find we are using spreadsheets more than a few times for a task I do ask my colleagues to build an automated solution to produce that report automatically. I don't want to waste resource paying a member of staff to tinker with spreadsheets.

It's me, I'm that colleague.

 

[Alan]

Surely project management tools would be better for mission critical processes.

Sometime they are cost prohibitive.

In my son's business he uses a job scheduling app to plan visits and notify customer and that links through to his accounting system for billing.

However the job scheduling app lacks an ability to do route planning so he can plan visits on optimal routes to minimise travel.

So simple, add that to the job planning system!

Not quite there is a massive step in costs, I mean massive, affordable by companies with say 100 vans but not one with 2 vans.

So he uses a Google sheet with a mapping extension that fills the gaps.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

I use spreadsheets to create event plans/layouts, allocate space and create mailing lists, all in one!

 

[fantheflames]

I've been using Asana and Obsidian for note-taking, planning and documenting more detail.

What's Obsidian like? Have been thinking about using Obsidian as well.

I use Asana.

 

[fantheflames]

I don't use spreadsheets that much.

I use them to lay out initial plans sometimes, but other than that I use different software for client tracking or project planning.

As I am very communicative with my clients, I will use spreadsheets for social media content planning so they can view/edit the content as it's a familiar format/tool.

 

[japancool]

Reporting-wise, we use PowerBI for almost everything now. People want stuff they can interact with, and drill down to investigate the underlying data.

It's slow, and DAX is clumsy compared to SQL but it's growing on me.

I still use Excel in my personal business for modelling (that is, I use it to model pricing, as well as for pricing models).

 

[Kerwin]

What's Obsidian like? Have been thinking about using Obsidian as well.

I use Asana.

Obsidian is good, but I don't use its complete feature set. I have a Git repo on GitHub, and I upload my notes there and sync them between computers. I mainly use it so I don't forget things, so I write short notes in a bullet point list to prompt my memory.

 

[macScot]

Hi there

I'm interested to hear in what spreadsheets people use, and how critical they are to their business' success...

I'm looking to identify a common spreadsheet use, and completely automate it using tech to provide more accurate insights, make decision making easier... what would you love to be automated?

Any and all feedback is appreciated

We use a spreadsheet for accounting for deferred revenue and prepaid expenses. I'm ok using Excel so it was not too difficult to implement for our use case, but it might be worth looking into as most accounting and bookkeeping software do not provide for this, i.e. if you are selling or purchasing services that span multiple periods e.g. annual contracts, then the costs or income need to be split to the correct accounting periods.

 

[tony84]

Nothing critical, I have a pipeline spreadsheet which has always been useful for keeping on top of applications and income. It also has information on which helps me collate things that I need for my annual reports to the FCA.

But I am slowly moving away from it and using the reporting systems in our CRM.

Had it "broken" 12 months ago, it would have caused me a few headaches and spending a few hours collecting the data but it would not have caused any problems to applications etc.