Microsoft Excel is one of the most used and versatile spreadsheets solutions used by businesses today. From accounting to stock control to product information management, Excel can be used to streamline and improve your internal business processes.
One of the best ways to do this is with a custom Excel spreadsheet tailored to your business and the outcome you want to achieve.
In this post, we’ll cover why a business should consider using custom excel spreadsheets versus standard templates and why custom-designed spreadsheets will most likely save your business money in the long term, making them an essential – yet affordable – investment. So, let’s dive in!
Why Do I Need a Custom Excel Spreadsheet?
It’s perfectly reasonable to question the need for a custom Excel spreadsheet, especially if you’re a smaller business or don’t use Excel that often. However, the benefits of having a spreadsheet tailored to the task or process you need to complete are significant.
If you search online, you will find thousands of free Excel templates that you can use straight away in your business. The positive is that these free templates will help you solve a problem quickly and with relatively little effort. Most of the time, you just need to input your data, and the sheet will do its thing.
Problems with free templates often arise when the sheet is no longer fit for purpose. Maybe the amount of data your business uses has increased significantly, or you need to add a new column that is causing issues in the spreadsheet.
Custom Excel spreadsheets designed to be scalable with your business tailored to the task you’re trying to complete, which a free template simply cannot do. This is where a custom Excel spreadsheet comes into its own.
Because of our experience in designing spreadsheets for a range of businesses, we know the likely pitfalls and requirements you’ll have months ahead of time, and your spreadsheet can be designed to cater for these from day one.
This means less disruption for your business, full scalability and a solution that works exactly as you need it to every single time.
What Can A Custom Excel Spreadsheet Be Used For?
Thanks to the versatility of MS Excel spreadsheets, the list of uses for Excel in business is long and varied. Some of the most common spreadsheets that we design for our business clients include:
- Spreadsheets to automate repetitive tasks
- Accounting spreadsheets
- Sales reporting and tracking
- Invoice and customer tracking
- Product information management
- Dashboards & KPI reports
- eCommerce integration spreadsheets
Using Excel for automation through to implementing Excel as middleware between systems, we design custom Excel spreadsheets that complement your existing processes or improve them so your staff have more time.
So, rather than completing tedious manual work or constantly having to use a work-around to get a standard spreadsheet to output the data and analysis you need, staff can work on high-value tasks for the business. This could be anything from generating more income to simply getting more done in the day, increasing productivity and reducing stress.
Why Do I Need To Create A Custom Excel Spreadsheet?
The most important consideration is what the sheet will be used for. While an Excel document can have many ‘tabs’, using one sheet for one purpose is best practice. For example, you may have a sales report in one tab and a stock report in another.
Knowing what you want the spreadsheet to do and how you want to view the data is a crucial first step. Some examples might include:
- I want to see all of my stock levels in real-time
- I want to automate a specific task to save my staff time
- I want to create a dashboard that shows me the key business metrics at a glance
With a purpose for the spreadsheet identified, the task moves on to designing the sheet to ensure it delivers on your objectives. This process is vital to get right early so that you’re not editing a sheet later on with live data in it.
As well as functionality, the way the sheet looks is essential too. Line spacing, colours, fonts and borders all contribute to ensuring your spreadsheet is functional and user-friendly, critical if you want people to adopt a new or updated way of working.
With the design in place, we’ll start adding data into the sheet a run some tests to make sure everything is working the way you want it to. Finally, we can add all of the data into your custom Excel spreadsheet with your approval, and you’re good to go.
How Much Does a Custom Excel Spreadsheet Cost?
Due to the nature of every project being different, we cannot provide a standard price for projects. However, if you get in touch with our team and book a no-obligation discovery call, we’ll give you a quote and timeline for completion.
It’s always important to remember the positive long-term impact a custom spreadsheet design will have on your business. For example, would a sheet save your employees an hour day if a task was automated? Would it prevent errors that make reporting easier? Will it prevent over or understocking?
On balance, our clients find hiring our Excel Experts and making a small investment in a custom-designed spreadsheet delivers great returns over many years.
Why Use The Excel Experts For Your Spreadsheet Design?
Here at the Excel Experts, we’re dedicated to matching you with the perfect Excel consultant for the task you need to complete. We’ve got experts in every area of Excel that are friendly, affordable and highly experienced in various sectors.
When you work with us, you can be confident that we’ve most likely dealt with your problem before and know what the most cost-effective and appropriate solution is for your business. Whatsmore, we offer a 100% no questions asked total satisfaction guarantee.
Some of the clients we’ve worked with include:
- Hampshire Constabulary
- Martin & Co Estate Agents
- JC Decaux Media
- Greenpeace
- Bellway Homes
Contact our team of Excel specialists today, and let’s get planning and implementing a custom Excel spreadsheet for your business that saves your business time and money and allows your staff and company to focus on what they do best.
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