Why Use CASAI Instead of Excel?
Excel is still the most common tool for quantity measurement and valuation. Despite its flexibility, spreadsheets create real risks for business-critical commercial contract data. That is why more teams move from Excel to purpose-built platforms like CASAI.
Excel is still the most widely used tool for managing quantity measurement and valuation.
Despite its flexibility, using Excel carries significant risks, some of which undermine its benefits, especially for organisations handling business-critical data. That is why smarter companies are moving from Excel to web-based database applications for data management.
Complacency leads to inefficiency
Web apps run online, which means they are available wherever there is an internet connection. They can be used by several people at once, secured with passwords and two-factor authentication, and generate dynamically interactive reports.
But if custom web applications are so much better than spreadsheets for managing data, why do many companies still not take the step from Excel to the web?
Many started with Excel spreadsheets. They have a long history with Excel, and that familiarity makes it the default tool for most people when they handle data. For many, Excel is simply their comfort zone.
But there comes a time when you need to step out of that comfort zone, especially when spreadsheets are already slowing the business down.
1. Excel is not secure
Security is a key reason many companies prefer a web app instead of running the business on a spreadsheet.
Even if users add password protection to a spreadsheet or macro, the security level is relatively low and can be bypassed. A quick search shows several third-party services ready to open your “protected” spreadsheets.
Unencrypted and exposed to unauthorised access, Excel spreadsheets can become a major business vulnerability. In fact, according to research from technology company Cisco, Microsoft Office formats, including Excel, represent the most common group of malicious file extensions used in email documents, at 38% of the total.
2. Excel is error-prone.
Unlike web applications, which can be configured to limit what users see of specific data, spreadsheets expose formulas to everyone, which opens the door to manipulation and errors, intentional or otherwise.
It is also not uncommon to find errors in user-created spreadsheets, even for the most experienced Excel user.
You may remember the “London Whale” incident, where JPMorgan Chase lost 6 billion dollars partly because of a spreadsheet error. An employee used a SUM function instead of AVERAGE, contributing to the largest financial loss the company had ever taken. Unfortunately, there are countless other examples of major failures that can be traced back to smaller Excel mistakes.
It is wiser to move your Excel data into a secure, tamper-resistant web app to avoid these risks altogether.
3. Excel spreadsheets are hard to keep track of.
In today’s collaborative environments, several users access the same Excel file, which makes changes hard to track. Traceability is missing. Bookkeeping in Excel format is not accepted in many contexts precisely because of these traceability problems.
Chances are that most of your colleagues still email Excel files around to share information. Things can spiral quickly: too many versions of the file, no clear record of who changed what, and uncertainty about where the latest version lives.
Hopefully you are not the unlucky person tasked with consolidating everyone’s changes into a single file.
By moving your data from Excel to web apps, you control access for multiple users who need to work at the same time. Users only get the specific views they need, so they can run calculations and create reports without damaging the integrity of the core data.
4. Excel is hard to scale.
Relying on Excel for day-to-day operations is not sustainable for a growing organisation. The time and effort required to maintain these documents becomes a bottleneck for efficiency and productivity.
The software does not support real-time data sharing or notifications, which makes it hard for teams to work together and act immediately. Files also take forever to load as they grow, so the more data you have, the more time you need to get things done.
If you want scalability from spreadsheets, look elsewhere.