9 Excel Headaches You Can Avoid with Cloud Analytics Tools

Organizing your business and keeping up with complicated planning across different departments within a company is a challenge when you focus solely on Excel. While the program is ideal for spreadsheets, it does not always keep up with your needs as a business owner. By using cloud analytics tools, you keep up with a growing company without facing unnecessary headaches and hassles.

Accidental Deletions

A spreadsheet is fragile and a single deleted row of information causes your formulas to break down throughout the entire spreadsheet. The program was not designed for sharing across a large business platform.

Consolidation Failure

Spreadsheets do not easily move data from one area to another area. You must manually consolidate the information when you want to develop a company-wide plan from different departments. It takes hours or even days to consolidate the information, which wastes time you can spend on other areas of business development.

Wasted Professional Time

When professionals spend years obtaining a degree, they do not expect to waste their time on Excel headaches. Sharing information, gathering data and consolidating information on Excel is a time-consuming process that wastes the time and energy of your employees. It crushes their motivation and enthusiasm for a project.

The Historical Picture

Excel spreadsheets are limited in the data you obtain. It is a historical picture rather than a real-time image of your business. Since you manually enter information, it is outdated within a single day.

Importing Data is Challenging

When you use Excel for data management, you spend hours manually entering data from other programs. You cannot easily import information into the spreadsheet from different departments and programs.

Limited Information Management

Excel is not an information management system, so it falls short when you need several individuals in a company to run reports and manage data. While it may help when a single individual wants to keep up with certain information, it does not work well when you involve several individuals into data management in your business.

Flat Dimensions

When you want to evaluate the impact of changes to single departments within your company, an Excel spreadsheet does not help with your goals. It has limitations to the number of dimensions you add to the data. As your business grows and you have more dimensions to your company data, you need a system that keeps up with the complex information.

Sourcing Mistakes

Developing a company means more individuals input data into the Excel spreadsheet. The problem is identifying the individual who made changes when a mistake occurs. You may have an idea of who had access to the spreadsheet, but clarifying who entered inaccurate information, accidentally deleted a row of data or otherwise made a mistake becomes impossible. You cannot identify the source of the mistake.

Keeping up with a Global Market

Excel is a headache when you start moving into the global market. Since you must track different currencies, changes to currency exchange rates and international taxation standards, you may face difficulties when using Excel. The spreadsheet does not keep up with real-time data and does not work well when you must keep up with several currencies and laws.

When you want to avoid headaches caused by manual data management through an Excel spreadsheet, cloud analytics tools offer a solution. The analytics tools are more versatile for your goals as a business owner and provide access to real-time data that makes it easy to keep up with your plans.

Learn how to avoid these headaches in the eBook: The 9 Circles of Excel Hell