5 Benefits Of Migrating From Google Sheets To Custom Software

Many businesses utilize Google Sheets as a means to track and report important internal data and others even create businesses based solely off Google Sheets’ capabilities. Google Sheets does, however, have its limitations which is why many companies are seeking to scale operations by investing in custom software. Google Sheets is a spreadsheet program, similar to Microsoft Excel, with the added benefit of allowing multiple users to edit the same document at once. In this article, we discuss 5 benefits of moving from Google Sheets to a custom software solution.

Scalability

A major scalability issue with Google Sheets is that when the same sheets are shared by numerous entities, it becomes extremely time consuming to make changes or additions across all sheets. For example, if a company is using a financial spreadsheet across hundreds of clients but then want to add a new section to these sheets across the board, they have to manually go into each sheet for each client and make this same addition hundreds of times. On the other hand, if you were to use a custom application, a change can be set up to automatically be pushed out to every department at once.

Data Entry

A significant advantage to custom software is the ease of use when it comes to data entry. What used to be a laborious and sometimes complex process of entering data into the right cells without accidentally manipulating layouts or formulas can be simplified so users can simply enter data into a field and click save. Unlike Google Sheets, there are no formulas that can be accidently deleted or manipulated and there is no need for less tech-savvy individuals to learn how to add new rows or columns to sheets.

Security

Security can become an issue in Google Sheets when several users require access and the easiest way to grant access becomes sharing one link that everyone has access to. Once this becomes the case, it can be very difficult to keep track of who has access to these sheets and nearly impossible to revoke access for certain users. With custom software, users can be given unique login credentials with certain password requirements and/or dual factor authentication. Different permission levels can also be assigned to users corresponding to their roles. These permission levels can allow for different functionality and access for different roles.

Audit Trail

Although Google does keep a version history of file edits, they only keep the revisions for either 100 revisions or 30 days worth (whichever is shorter) unless an individual version is marked as ‘keep forever’. With custom software, you can set specific files to automatically store backups at certain intervals and implement change logs to see who edited what at any point of time.

Customization

With Google Sheets, you’re limited to the functionality that the tool offers. With custom software, the sky’s the limit for how you want your custom solution to look, what you want it to do, and how you want it to function. Alerts and push notifications can also be configured to remind users to enter data, run reports and more!

Let Us Help

Flint Hills Group has helped many companies scale from existing Google Sheets operations to custom software solutions. We even have procedures to seamlessly transfer data from Google Sheets into the new solution.

When you choose Flint Hills Group, you choose a dedicated team of experienced US-based individuals with an average of 20+ years experience. We utilize the latest development trends so that your software is up to date and scalable.

We can provide you with outsourced developers or an entire software team with a project manager. Be sure to read our reviews on Clutch, an independent platform for rating agencies. You can then review our process, and request an estimate for your project.