When a spreadsheet is a sensible start
Spreadsheets are familiar, flexible and inexpensive. Ten products with a few weekly movements may need only item, inbound, outbound and balance columns. Formulas and pivot tables remain excellent for custom analysis.
The problem is not the spreadsheet itself. It appears when the file becomes a home-built transaction system: sales, receipts, customer balances, locations and permissions are simulated through linked cells that one person must maintain.
Signs the workflow has outgrown the file
- Files are named “final”, “final-2” and “actual-final”.
- A sale is entered in one place and inventory is reduced later.
- Nobody can identify the transaction behind a difference.
- Multiple people need different permissions.
- Customer credit is kept in another notebook.
- Finding products on a phone is slow.
- The team cannot tell which copy is current.
Several recurring signs suggest a data-structure problem, not a need for another formula.
The core difference: record an event
A spreadsheet cell may say quantity equals 18. An event-based system says a location had 20 and a sale removed two. If 18 seems wrong, the second system offers a path to investigate.
Customer balances work the same way. Replacing a balance with $200 loses the $300 sale and $100 receipt that explain it.
You do not have to abandon Excel
Keep daily operations in Salelog and export supported reports when a custom spreadsheet is useful. Define which system owns the record; editing both creates a reconciliation problem. Start with a small pilot, especially because large bulk imports are not currently promised.