Break up with Excel: How to find the real software for life

We all have a love-hate relationship with Excel. We need to give it its due credit when it comes to its quick calculations and flexible formats. 99% of, if not all, finance teams are leveraging on it. However, with the growing reporting requirements and influx of numbers, Excel is showing its limitations.

Can you even sum up the number of times Excel has stopped responding? Failed to save your hard work? Unable to find your values or Macros?

Despite these setbacks, many of us are still stuck with this tedious and manual tool, just because we have become accustomed to these ridiculous errors.  

The honeymoon period with Excel has passed

If you have been with your finance team for long enough, you may still vaguely remember how things were at the beginning. With little numbers and information, Excel performed well and provided you with the answers and reports you needed. But this honeymoon period is short-lived.

In today’s age and the proliferation of big data, we are all trying our best to navigate through a data jungle filled with complex numbers, various data sources and running formulas. This is not something Excel was made to do. By dumping data and adding hundreds of tabs into your spreadsheets, it is not strange to see Excel showing:

=IF(ACTUAL ERROR)(#NUMBER!;#VALUE!)

excel graphic

Why are we not ending our relationship with Excel?

Yes, Excel has its limitations, but it is not so easy to end our relationship with it. Truth be told, despite the manual and tedious work finance teams must face daily, many of us have already built a routine around fixing spreadsheet error.

Excel is also a common platform everyone knows. To end our relationship with Excel is going to be a single person’s decision. Everyone must be on board to cut-off ties with Excel and be willing to take the first step in switching to a better alternative.

Many finance professionals have already accepted the constant manual-work and overtime as their fate.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

There are plenty of intelligent, simple to use, easy to learn platforms out there that will break you free from your miserable life with spreadsheets. You just have to start looking.

What can a better partner provide for you?

In today’s market, you can find software that offers:

  • Integration of multiple data sources
  • One database containing a single-source-of-truth
  • Flexible budget comparisons and customization of KPIs
  • Consolidation and reporting at the push of a button

This does not have to remain a dream. You could easily achieve all of these and more, such as elimination of intercompany profit and loss, currency translation, consolidation processes, automatic links between income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement.

It’s time to find the right software for life

To find the right software for life, you need to start looking into Financial Performance Management (FPM) solutions. FPM solutions will bring order to the data jungle, allow you to enjoy a pain-free financial close, and you can even end work on time!

graphic lucanet software solutions overview

With LucaNet, you may fall in love again

LucaNet’s leading FPM solution allows you and your team to:

  • Reduce the error rate by almost 100 %.
  • Enable a process that 100 % supports workflow.
  • Create 80 % greater transparency and traceability.
  • Reduce complexity by 51 %.
  • Create 90 % greater transparency in the data.
  • Reduce FTEs by 25 %.

Eager to learn more? Discover the right software for life with our white paper:

Getting out of Excel chaos

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