A spreadsheet fails the day it has to be in two places.
One file, one person, one place is fine. The trouble starts at two.
What a spreadsheet is genuinely good at
It is the fastest way ever invented to answer a question you only have once. No project, no login, no licence. For most of what a small business counts, that is the right tool and we say so.
We have talked people out of building software more than once, and the reason is nearly always the same: they had a question, not a process.
The day it stops fitting
Watch for the second copy. Somebody keeps a version on their phone because the one on the desk is not with them. Now there are two answers to the same question and nobody can say which is older.
Iglisi Watch reached that point with a notebook. Repairs were written at the workbench, sales happened at the counter, and the notebook could only ever be at one of them.
The signal is a second place where the truth is kept, whatever the volume.
What replaced it
Not a bigger spreadsheet. A system holding repair jobs, stock and the money in 5 separate lines, plus a reference library that keeps working in a back room with no signal, because the back room is where the work happens.
That last part matters more than it sounds. Software needing a connection to answer a question is unavailable exactly when somebody is standing in front of you waiting for the answer.
When we tell people to keep the spreadsheet
If one person owns the file and works in one place, keep it. If the process changes every month, keep it, because software is slower to change than a column is.
We would rather say that now than build something you resent in a year.
Tell us what you keep in two places, and which copy you trust. That question usually settles it in one message. Get a free audit.
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