Excel Is Not a Database (And It Is Tired of Pretending)
Dear business owner. It is me, Excel. Specifically, I am the file called "Clients_FINAL_v7_REAL_use_this_one.xlsx" on the shared drive. I have been running your entire company for four years, and I need to talk to you about something. I am a spreadsheet. I was never meant to be your database, your CRM, your stock system and your payroll all at once. It may be time to look at custom business software in Kenya, or at least proper systems, before I collapse. With love, and a lot of #REF! errors.
A spreadsheet's honest confession
Let us be fair to Excel. It is one of the most useful tools ever made. For calculations, quick analysis, budgets and one-off lists, it is brilliant. Almost every business starts on spreadsheets, and that is perfectly sensible.
The trouble begins when a spreadsheet slowly becomes the system. Kiprop adds a column. Fatuma adds a tab. Someone adds colour coding that only they understand. Before long, the business depends on a file that only two people dare to touch.
Signs your spreadsheet is begging for retirement
You may have outgrown spreadsheets if:
There are several versions of the same file and nobody is sure which is current
Two people cannot work on it at the same time without overwriting each other
One wrong delete or sort has destroyed data before
You copy the same information between different sheets by hand every week
Reports take days to prepare because the data has to be cleaned first
Anyone with access can see everything, including salaries and client details
The file is so big it takes several minutes to open, and everyone goes for chai while it loads
Otieno, who runs a distribution business, realised there was a problem when his sales team and his warehouse each had their own stock spreadsheet. They disagreed by several hundred units. Both teams were certain they were right. The truth was somewhere in a tab called "Sheet3 (2)".
What a real system gives you
A proper database-backed system, whether off the shelf or custom built, solves the problems spreadsheets were never designed for:
One source of truth that everyone sees, updated in real time
User accounts and permissions, so people only see what they need
Validation that stops mistakes, like dates in the phone number column
A history of who changed what, and when
Automatic reports instead of weekend copy and paste marathons
The ability to connect to other tools, such as M-Pesa payments or SMS reminders
That last point is often where the real value appears. When your records live in a proper system, customers can pay and the payment is recorded automatically, instead of someone typing M-Pesa codes into a spreadsheet late into the evening.
Off the shelf or custom business software in Kenya?
Not every problem needs custom software. If a ready-made product already does what you need, use it. It is usually faster and cheaper.
For example, schools, law firms and HR teams have common needs, which is why products exist for them, including ours: SchoolPoint, LegalDesk, OfficeCUBE and PesaVista. But if your business has a unique process, the thing that actually makes you competitive, custom business software built around how you work can be worth it.
A good rule: buy for the common stuff, build for the special stuff.
Moving off spreadsheets without pain
Migration sounds scary, but it does not need to be dramatic. Start by documenting what the spreadsheet actually does, including the clever formulas nobody remembers writing. Clean up the data before moving it. Run the old and new systems side by side for a short period. And keep the spreadsheet around for analysis, which is what it is genuinely great at.
If you are wondering whether your spreadsheet has become a system in disguise, talk to Philsoft and we will give you an honest opinion. Sometimes the answer is a simple tool. Sometimes it is a better spreadsheet. Excel, for its part, just wants a holiday.