Why Your Business Needs a Bespoke Spreadsheet

You may not undertake elaborate projects, but all businesses follow some sort of process when it comes to completing what needs to be done. Have a look at your own business. From the time a new client contacts you, to the time when they hand over the money, what process do you follow? Is it always completely different, or is there some kind of pattern? The more of a pattern there is, the more useful a project management (or process management) tool will be. If you know what process you need to follow, we can lay the spreadsheet out to match that process. Not only will this help you to follow it, but it can warn you of what needs to be done, monitor what has been done, and potentially report back on how well it was done. So, if you undertake complex projects or follow a simple procedure, a project management solution can make the whole process so much easier.

KPIs are so important, whether they be for staff, projects, or management. If you want to make changes in your business, the starting point is knowing what has happened before and what your ideal outcome is. What KPIs do you need to monitor? Do you know what is expected, and do you have the data to work out what was done? If so, get hold of us to make you a spreadsheet to analyse your data and show you exactly which KPIs were achieved. That will help you to make the right decisions to move your business forward. Take a look at this blog post.

We didn’t set out to cover this area of business, but we’ve found that a few of our clients are in HR and they require all sorts of solutions from us. We have done Absentee Monitors, Holiday Planners, 360 Staff Appraisals, Succession Planners, Consultant Commission Calculators, and Joint Staff Diaries. These are just the ready-made solutions in our store. We are often doing HR related projects, as there is so much data to monitor. Are there any solutions that your HR department needs? If so, get in touch.

If you have clients, do you manage that relationship properly? There are so many CRM systems out there, and if one of them works for you, we wish you all the best with it. We’re not trying to get you to change to a spreadsheet solution, but we have made many CRM solutions for our clients. Why? CRM software solutions are often made with a ‘one size fits all’ mentality, or they are so involved that they do way more than what you need, or invariably don’t do one thing that you do need. When people want a simple solution, but one which is tailor-made for them, they come to us so that we can provide them with what they need at an affordable price. Does that sound like something that you need? Here is why my clients use spreadsheets over CRM software.

This used to be what most people used spreadsheets for, but as stated above, we don’t do many financially based solutions. Why? Because there are so many accounting software packages available, and we don’t want to compete. Having said that, there are apparently many businesses out there that prefer to use spreadsheets for their financial records, so we are working on a spreadsheet solution for Making Tax Digital. If you’d like a custom-made solution to manage your finances, get in touch. If you use an accounting software package, does it produce all the reports that you want? If not, export the required data to CSV, and then get us to make a spreadsheet to analyse and report on that data.

These are vital for business owners. How can you make decisions about your business, if you don’t know what’s happening in your business? You can combine a management dashboard with any of the other spreadsheets, as the data is already there and ready to be analysed. If you only need the management dashboard, then we can set it up to accept data, whether typed or pasted in. That way, you add your data and see the report immediately. This is one type of spreadsheet that almost everyone needs. We have made them for one-man bands, and we have made them for multi-national corporations. What information would you like to see as a business owner? Click here to see more about this.

This is becoming more of a demand. Data is becoming more and more abundant, but data does not mean information. We have loads of data; sometimes when it is exported to CSV, it is just rows and rows of numbers. What does it all mean? Do you have any data which you do not understand? Would you like to have an accurate view of what your data means? If so, then this is something for you to consider. We have made a free series of Social Media Analysis Reports to show you how simply copying data from a CSV and pasting it to our spreadsheet, can open up a world of reports and useful information. We’d love to know what data you wish to understand, and make you a solution.

Do you make, assemble, stock, or sell products? We have made spreadsheets to help you cost and manage your products, and we have also made solutions to retrospectively look back on your sales, to show you which ones are viable or not. Costs, sales, stock figures, margins, expenses, are all things that a good spreadsheet can bring an awful amount of clarity to. If managing, analysing and reporting on your products and sales is something that you may find useful, then please do get in touch.