With hundreds of thousands of users, Excel is one of the most well-known and popular spreadsheet software tools in the world. Not only is it great for organising and reporting data, but it’s straightforward to use too. On the other hand, when handling large amounts of data, it doesn’t take long to gather far more data than Excel can handle.
More companies are choosing to move away from Excel having found that their desktop spreadsheets don’t enable real-time data sharing, updating, or enable a clear picture of all data within your organisation.
If, like many other businesses, you find Excel lacks in the functionalities that you require, you’ll be relieved to learn that many other companies agree with you. Here we cover the all-too common Excel issues reported by companies all over the world.
- Different file versions make it hard to keep track
When storing Excel files locally on your computer, you’re able to add changes and update the file; this is a simple and hassle-free task. Yet, when several people are working and making changes to the same document, you’ll find yourself in a predicament of users working from different versions of the same file.
With each person maintaining a different version of the file, displaying slightly different data, questioning who has the correct version of the file becomes confusing at the very least. Not only could you end up wasting time and gaining a headache, you’ll also run the risk of displaying incorrect information.
- Operational issues and slow performance
When storing large volumes of data within an Excel spreadsheet, you will most likely find that the spreadsheet operates slowly at times. This can be very frustrating when in need of key data at speed and is a very common problem for sales and marketing departments who can easily accumulate more data than Excel can cope with.
One way to handle the slower operation of Excel is to break the data up into smaller chunks or maintain multiple worksheets. This however makes it increasingly difficult to consolidate your data, and means you’ll never really be able to see a full overview of your business as it’ll be difficult connecting each of your separate datasets.
- Uninspiring visuals
High quality data visualisation makes the process of seeing patterns and changing trends very easy. Without this functionality, you miss out on the ability to process columns and rows of data almost instantaneously. While Excel, offers data visualisations tools for data sets that are small, increasing data sets lead to static visuals that are unpresentable. This can not only leave you feeling uninspired, it can also be misleading.
- Error prone manual updates
When using Excel, adding fields, copying formulas and data values can break pre-set functions. This means updating data is rarely a simple task, particularly as adding new columns often means that the same column must be produced for pre-existing data. This makes manual updates both error-prone and time-consuming.
- Key performance indicators dashboards
For those of you looking to create meaningful Key Performance Indicator (KPI) dashboards, you may need to move beyond the basic functionality of Excel. The most influential KPIs necessitate formulas that reference several columns and use multifaceted filters. Reporting data becomes a time-consuming, manual exercise when having difficulty calculating KPI results using a single Excel formula, which is why moving away from Excel could prove beneficial overall.
If you have experienced any or all of the issues above, it may be time to consider that you and your complex data have outgrown Excel. Searching for an EPM Cloud software solution with increased functionalities that enable you to quickly implement a world-class planning and budgeting solution is likely to be an influential step in the running of your business.
With Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud you can create your own custom planning and forecasting models to meet the specific needs of your business, whilst gaining from a first-class functionality, quick implementation and flexible deployment.