When a spreadsheet is enough
A spreadsheet is cheap, familiar and flexible. It is often the right tool when:
- one person keeps the records,
- there is a single godown or shop,
- you have a few dozen products and a handful of orders a day,
- you sell mostly for cash, so there are few customer balances to track, and
- orders are delivered in one go rather than in parts.
Where spreadsheets struggle
- Several people editing. Copies multiply, and it becomes unclear which file is current or who changed a figure.
- Several godowns. Each location needs its own figures, and transfers must leave one and arrive in the other.
- Promised stock. A sheet shows what is on the shelf, not what is already promised to customers, so the same stock can be sold twice.
- Partial deliveries and receipts. Tracking what is still to come or still to deliver on each order quickly becomes a second spreadsheet.
- Linking stock to money. A delivery should change stock, the invoice and the customer’s balance together. In separate sheets or registers, each is updated by hand and they drift apart.
- History. A cell holds the latest number, not how it got there, so differences are hard to trace.
- Formula errors. Spreadsheet research has repeatedly found that errors are common and hard to spot. Raymond Panko’s review of the evidence concludes that error rates per cell are low, but in large spreadsheets at least one incorrect bottom-line value is very likely, and that people are overconfident about their spreadsheets’ accuracy.
Side by side
| Need | Spreadsheet or register | Inventory software |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to start | Little or none | A subscription or licence, plus setup time |
| Flexibility | Any layout you like | Works the way the software is designed |
| Stock in several godowns | Separate tabs or files, updated by hand | Stock held per warehouse, with transfers |
| Stock already promised | Usually not tracked | Reserved and available shown separately (in software that supports it) |
| Customer and supplier balances | A separate khata or sheet | Updated from the same invoices, bills and payments |
| Several users | Shared files and copies | Separate logins with permissions |
| Audit trail | Limited | Each change recorded as a document |
Signs you have outgrown it
- Stock counts regularly disagree with the sheet, and nobody can say why.
- A customer was promised goods that had already been sold.
- Working out what a customer owes means checking invoices, payments and the khata by hand.
- Month-end profit is an estimate because the cost of what was sold is not recorded at the time of sale.
- More than one person needs to update stock, and you need to control who can do what.
- You keep stock in more than one godown.
Your options
Moving off spreadsheets does not mean only one kind of product. Broadly:
- Accounting software with an inventory module: strongest on books and tax; inventory depth varies.
- Inventory and order management software, such as Stockroot: strongest on stock, orders, deliveries and the balances they create.
- Point-of-sale systems: built for counter sales and barcode scanning in shops.
- ERP systems: broad coverage across a business, usually with more setup and cost.
Match the tool to how you sell. Stockroot is built for businesses that buy from suppliers, keep stock in godowns and sell to other businesses on credit. It is not a point-of-sale system, and it does not currently offer barcode scanning, batch or expiry tracking, or FBR-integrated invoicing. If you need those, a different kind of product may suit you better. See what Stockroot does not do yet.
Before you switch
- Clean the product list. One row per product, with a consistent category, name, unit and pack size. Stockroot imports exactly these four columns from Excel or CSV.
- Count your stock. Start from a physical count per godown, not from the old sheet. Our stock count guide explains how.
- List what customers owe and what you owe suppliers on the day you start.
- Decide who does what. Who creates orders, who confirms them, who receives goods, who records payments.
- Pick a start date and stop updating the old sheet from that day, so there is only one record.
Sources
- Ray Panko, “What we don’t know about spreadsheet errors today: The facts, why we don’t believe them, and what we need to do”, Proceedings of the EuSpRIG 2015 Conference, pp. 79–93 (arXiv, February 2016).