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turn excel into database

4 reasons why you should turn excel into database now

Microsoft Excel is the most widely used spreadsheet in many businesses. It plays a very crucial role in the business world as it is very flexible and productive. Users can manipulate, store and graph their business data. People love to use Excel because it is easy to use, easy to create graphical representation or visualise data, easily integrate with other business applications.

Although it is recognised as a universal accounting tool, it has many disadvantages too. It is highly risky for organisations handling critical and sensitive data.

In the beginning stages, many companies started using Excel to manage inventory but when volume of transaction increased, it became hard to use. Below are some of the main disadvantages of excel spreadsheet listed to make you understand clearly why you should switch your excel sheets to custom database development.

It’s not secure

Among the other disadvantages stated below, this is the most important one to be considered now. Although you can protect your spreadsheet with password, it can be easily hacked. Many third party software and tips are available on Google to hack spreadsheet passwords. Hackers can easily alter formulas, values, or dependencies which you cannot detect, and the result is Billion Dollar losses.

It’s error-prone

As we know, “To err is human” and if an Excel user made a mistake, sometimes even an experienced staff cannot identify the errors generated in spreadsheets. You may have heard about the “London Whale” incident where 6 billion dollars lost by JP Morgan Chase due to error in spreadsheets. It is because of SUM function wrongly used in spreadsheet instead of AVERAGE. Although it is a simple mistake made, the impact was high.

It’s hard to keep track of

Tracking of past information or previous versions is very hard as it is being shared among your co-workers. If someone made any changes to the file, it is hard to track. Every spreadsheet is a highly personalised user development application, as it is created by individuals who are unaware about perfect documentation. So if a newcomer takes over it, he has to start from scratch.

It’s difficult to scale

Excel is good for business having a small volume of transactions, and it is not reliable for a growing company. If large volumes of data are maintained in spreadsheets, real time sharing will be slow, and if updates are made in widely shared excel sheets, the notifications regarding these will be delayed. This will result in making decisions for teams to work together especially while taking immediate action.

You might have experienced the above issues, but still follow the spreadsheet method as you think you don’t have a better solution for this, right? Don’t worry, we can turn the same excel spreadsheet into a database application which can be used and shared by many people, not just inside your company but people outside your country itself. But this is done only if you permitted them to. We know you wish to know more about how database applications works and how your confidential data is safe in your own database etc. Database apps is easier and more user friendly and you won’t feel as if you are using a web app and no knowledge of web technologies is required to work on it. It will be developed based on your current working system only. ISH Technologies focuses on developing web apps with your own methodologies. View our recent case study, and how we helped the Institute of Indigenous Australia to make a custom CRM from excel sheets.

To learn more about upgrading from Excel to CRM, saving money and time, and getting a competitive edge, please contact us at 1300 474 832