Non-Profit

Five amazing reasons to stop doing financial reporting in Excel

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On the one hand, it seems like Excel is one of the biggest tools on the market today. It comes on nearly every PC you buy, whether for home or for the office. It’s simple, it doesn’t feature bugs, and it’s been the cornerstone of spreadsheet work for decades. Sounds like a pretty reliable deal when you look at it that way. But there is something you may not consider: Financial reporting in Excel is the worst. Stop me if this sounds familiar: you need to make a budget, using Excel, and you find yourself more frustrated than anything. Things are taking so long, manual data entry is tedious, formulas aren’t copying over and it’s so clunky! And when you’re finally done, your boss tells you to do it all over again with a separate projection. Is this really the best method? No, it’s definitely not!

 

Questica wants to keep you informed of all your options, and let you know that there’s a better option. Rather than doing financial reporting in Excel, check out Questica’s own line of budgeting and forecasting software. If you want to know more about Questica, who we are and what we do, check out our website to read more about our methods, blogs and case studies.

 

Now, without further ado, here’s why you should stop doing financial reporting in Excel.

An unspecific design

Excel is a solid spreadsheet program and you can use it for a lot of things. Think of it like a “Jack of All Trades, Master of None” for spreadsheets. Yes, you can use it for financial reporting, but it wasn’t specifically made for it. Do a little bit of research and you’ll find lots of better options out there — such as Questica!

 

So often we hear about nonprofits receiving a grant in the middle of the year, or there is a crisis (i.e, hurricanes, floods, natural disasters etc.) and they have to re-budget for the rest of the year. This means laborious hours re calculating the budget to make sure that you have entered it correctly and your formulas have transferred over. Although excel can handle this function, its human error you are up against.

 

Here’s some more features that Excel lacks.

Combine and conquer

One of the most critical elements to financial reporting is to assemble all of your information in one place. Excel, unfortunately, isn’t very good at this. Need to track approvals and work flow? Need to create a new scenario? You need to make a separate page for each of the different templates you require. This is a lot of time being unnecessarily wasted! When, in fact, could all be solved with a budget software.

Micro transactions

Ever play one of those free phone games? They start off completely free, and then gradually tack on small transactions here and there until eventually you end up paying more than if you had just bought the game in the first place! Excel is a bit like that in that it can perform the functions that dedicated financial software can, provided you purchase additional software. No thanks.

Get your head in the cloud

The Cloud is here, and it’s here to stay. Software that isn’t taking advantage of the incredible benefits that the Cloud has to offer simply isn’t worth your time. Excel is left in the dust when compared to the efficiency of the software in this day and age. Not to mention, security becomes an issue when you start passing these spreadsheets around to other department managers so they can upload their budget. Overall, budget software on the cloud is much more secure than a spreadsheet in an email.

Loyalty . . . for what purpose?

Excel does have a fan base. It’s familiar, it’s comfortable, it’s recognizable. But none of those things mean that it’s the best. It may be intimidating to switch to a lesser-known software, but when that software is easy to use, easy to learn, and easy to teach, isn’t that worth being a little more disloyal?

 

Questica’s software has the answers you need for better financial reporting. We know the frustrations of financial planning and reporting, and we know what you need. Try our software today and experience the difference for yourself. If you want to learn more, you can visit our website and request a demo for yourself.

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