It is hard for small businesses to overlook the customisable, simple spreadsheets that are available ‘free’ with Excel.

As a business tool Excel is incredibly useful, however, is it not designed to manage complex businesses with multiple people performing multiple tasks. As your business grows, you will begin to notice the limitations of using spreadsheets to manage your timesheets and projects. This should be the time you look for a more comprehensive system. But what are the limitations and warning signs you should be looking out for?
 

1. Reliance on manual data entry - Using Excel as your timesheet system leaves you completely reliant on manual data entry. One error when inputting information or manually transposing data from one spreadsheet to another can cost your business time and money while you’re looking for the mistake.

 

2. Analysing your data is a struggle - Excel is, in its most basic form, just a place where you can store vast amounts data. There is no easy way to analyse and interpret your data in depth. Once you have a substantial amount of data within your workbooks, it becomes increasingly more difficult to get meaningful analysis out. It is also difficult to use Excel as a hypothetical/predictive tool. What happens if Project A goes over budget? What happens if I don’t have the resource to complete Project B? As Excel relies on the information that is inputted it is a challenge to then use it as a forecasting tool.

 

3. Data collation and collaboration can be challenging – Do you find yourself asking your team the following questions; ‘Can you send me your timesheets?’, ‘Where’s the receipt for that expense claim?’, ‘Can you come out of that spreadsheet?’ Working in this way can make real-time information incredibly difficult to produce and can make your business slow, inefficient and unproductive. The more difficult it is to enter or retrieve information, the less likely users are to engage with it perpetuating a downward spiral in data capture and accuracy.

 

4. No integration – with Excel there is limited ability to dynamically integrate with your other systems. Manual imports and exports of data will be commonplace within your business. Again, this takes a lot of time and exposes your business to risk. It can also lead to convoluted processes that could be a lot more streamlined with systems that automatically talk to each other.

 

5. Small errors aren’t usually noticeable until they’re big errors – spreadsheet errors tend to have a waterfall effect. Even an error in one cell can have huge ramifications further down the line. One incorrect digit or decimal point can miscalculate other calculations at a later date. Just how much does this cost small businesses in missed revenue or time taken to unpick the mistakes?

Are you noticing these challenges within your business? If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to some or all of the points above then it’s time to replace your Excel based timesheet and project management system with an easy to use cloud-based application.

What would we recommend?

Coretime is online timesheet software which is quick and easy to use and can be used anytime, anywhere, so both office-based staff and staff working remotely have easy access. Coretime gives you complete project visibility and accurate, real time data to help you manage your projects effectively.

For businesses looking to improve efficiency, Coretime is a tried and trusted solution used by over 20,000 professionals worldwide that can also be integrated with Sage CRM, Sage 50 and Sage 200 Accounts. It eliminates double-entry of information, improves data accuracy and accelerates billing cycles giving you a true end-to-end solution.

Coretime is fully customisable and works with you rather than dictating how you should work. The system comes with a full reporting suite as standard but the reports can be tailored to your exact requirements.

And it’s not just time that Coretime manages, it also handles Expenses (via the Coretime App), Holidays, Purchase Order Management, Invoice distribution and Resource Planning.

Call Onesys on 01423 330335 Option 1 to find out more information on Coretime or email us on sales@onesys.co.uk to speak to one of our team on how we can help.