Say Good Bye to Excel
- Sara Goldin
- Apr 11, 2019
- 2 min read
So you have a small business, simple sales and expenses, and you don't need a big complicated accounting system. As most of us are, you are familiar enough with Excel, so it seems that is your best option.
Although, Excel seems like a great choice for simplicity, the costs of using it to keep track of your business' financial health is too costly. And here is why:
1. The Costs
The costs? Isn't excel free? Sure excel is a free program, but the time you will spend, creating formulas, formatting sheets, and just inputting data is costly. Programs list Quickbooks Online, are low in cost, and will save you tons of time. Hello, connect your account and upload your transactions!
2. The Cost of Mistakes
Mistakes, sure they will be made no matter the system you use, but being able to quickly find and correct these are crucial to the accuracy of your financials. With Excel, a mis-typed number, will have to be found through hundreds of cells, or what if there is a mis-formatted cell in your spreadsheet. Something this small can greatly change the outcome of your books. A mistake made months about can create a compound problem. With Quickbooks, or other accounting programs, they have programmed checks to help you find these mistakes and quickly correct them.
4. Cash Flow
In small businesses, cash flow is biggest reason for failure. Being about to accurately forecast and budget for cash flow in small business in critical. Excel isn't complex enough to help you calculate all the finite details of your profit margins for products and services and to properly manage growth. To keep you small business healthy, no matter the health of the market, it is critical to plan for cash flow. Your business may be booming, but if you can't keep the products flowing in, as quickly as they are flowing out, you will eventually stifle your cash flow.
Excel may be great for many things, but not for the financial health of your business. Spend the extra money for a system that will give you the best picture of your business. I use Quickbooks Online. It is easy to use, and scale, depending your business size. Also it is widely used, which will make it easier at tax time when you turn in your books to your CPA. Time to upgrade!