CentriWebIn the CRM vs spreadsheet question, the spreadsheet wins while one person keeps it and fewer than a few dozen live enquiries sit in it. You need a CRM once two people have to work from the same list, or once follow-ups are being missed because nothing reminds anyone. If neither is true yet, stay on the sheet and tidy it up.
A spreadsheet is a fine first system. Most businesses started on one, and plenty of good ones still run on one. The mistake is not using a sheet. The mistake is staying on it long after it has started costing you jobs, because moving feels like a project and the sheet still “works”.
What a spreadsheet does well
Be fair to it before you replace it. A sheet is free or close to it, everyone already knows how to open it, and you can bend it to any shape in a minute. There is no login to forget and no monthly fee to justify.
For a sole operator with a handful of live quotes, it is hard to beat. You can see the whole business on one screen. If that describes you, a CRM would add typing and little else.
Where it stops working is predictable, and it is always about people and time rather than the number of rows.
Five signs you have outgrown the sheet
1. Two people need to edit it
The moment a second person touches the file, you get copies. “Quotes final”, “Quotes final v2”, one on a laptop, one on a phone. Someone overwrites someone else’s note and nobody finds out until a customer asks why they were called twice. Shared online sheets reduce this but do not remove it, because nothing records who said what to whom.
2. Follow-ups depend on someone remembering
A sheet holds a “next contact” date, but it will not tell you that the date has passed. Somebody has to open the file, sort by date and look. On a busy week that does not happen. A CRM shows today’s tasks without being asked and flags the ones that are overdue. If you can name a job you lost because a call never happened, this is the sign that matters most.
3. You cannot answer “where did that enquiry come from?”
If you spend money on a website, Google, a directory listing or a referral thank-you, you want to know which one produced work. A sheet can have a “source” column, but it only works if everyone fills it in the same way. “Google”, “google ads”, “Goog” and “web” become four sources. A CRM gives you a pick list, so the answer is a count you can check.
4. Enquiries arrive from several places
Website form, phone, email, Facebook messages, a text. Copying each one into the sheet by hand is a job, and the ones that arrive on a Saturday wait until Monday. A CRM can take the web form straight in, which is covered in our guide to sending web forms into a CRM. Once enquiries land by themselves, the sheet becomes a place where things are late.
5. A customer’s history lives in someone’s head
When the person who spoke to a customer is away, can anyone else pick up the thread? If the answer is “ring them and ask”, you are paying for that gap in every handover. A CRM keeps calls, emails and notes against the customer, so a colleague can carry on without a briefing.
One sign is a prompt to look. Three or more is a decision.
CRM vs spreadsheet: what changes when you move from Excel
People often ask whether Excel as a CRM can be made to work with enough formulas. It can, up to a point. The things a sheet cannot do well are the ones that matter most for follow-up.
| Job | Spreadsheet | CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Remind someone to call today | Manual sort and look | Task list, with overdue flagged |
| Keep every message with the customer | Pasted in, if at all | Logged against the contact |
| Show where each job is up to | A status column | A pipeline with stages |
| Stop two people chasing the same lead | Trust | One owner per lead |
| Count enquiries by source | Cleaning up text by hand | Pick list and a report |
| Send a text or email when a stage changes | Not possible | Automation |
None of those rows needs anything fancy. They are the basic reasons a CRM exists.
When to stay on the spreadsheet
Plenty of businesses switch too early and end up with an empty system nobody opens. Stay on the sheet if:
- One person handles every enquiry, and always will.
- You have a small number of live jobs at any time and you remember all of them.
- Your problem is not follow-up. If leads are scarce, a CRM does not create more.
- You have not yet decided what your stages are. Software will not decide that for you.
In the last case, use the sheet to find out. Run it for a month with the columns in the next section. The habits you build there are the ones you will want the CRM to keep.
Set up the sheet properly first, then move
Whether you stay or switch, a clean sheet is the best preparation. These are the columns that carry over cleanly to any CRM:
- Name, phone, email, suburb. One row per person.
- Date of first contact.
- Source. A fixed list, typed from a drop-down.
- Service or job type. Also a fixed list.
- Stage. A short list such as New, Contacted, Quote sent, Decision pending, Won, Lost. Our guide to sales pipeline stages shows how to pick stages that match what the customer has actually done.
- Value. Your best estimate in dollars.
- Owner. Who is chasing it.
- Next action and date. The one column that turns a list into a system.
- Lost reason. Filled in whenever a job is lost.
If your sheet has more than a dozen columns, most are probably not used. Delete them before you move anything. Importing clutter into a new system just gives you clutter that is harder to change.
How to move without losing a month
The move is smaller than it feels if you keep the scope tight.
- Move live records only. Open quotes and active enquiries first. Won and lost history from last year can be imported later, or left in the sheet as an archive.
- Import in one go. Save the cleaned sheet as a CSV file and use the CRM’s import. Check ten rows afterwards against the original.
- Pick a date and stop writing to the sheet. Running both for weeks guarantees that neither is right. Make the old file read-only on the day.
- Use the new system for one week before adding anything. Resist the urge to add automations and extra fields until the basic task list is working.
The full order of work is in our guide to CRM implementation steps, and getting people to use it is covered in why staff avoid the CRM.
What it costs, and how to choose
Cost is rarely the main blocker, but it is worth knowing the range before you decide. Our guide to what a CRM costs in Australia covers the usual pricing models. If you are ready to compare products, our small business CRM comparison sets out how the main ones work and who each suits, with a disclosure of the tools we work in.
There is also a middle path some businesses take: a custom-built system rather than a standard product. That suits a narrower set of cases, which we set out in custom CRM vs off the shelf.
A quick test you can run this week
Open your sheet and answer three questions, with a stopwatch if you like.
- How long does it take to find every customer whose next contact date has passed?
- If your busiest person were away tomorrow, could someone else take over their leads from the sheet alone?
- Can you say how many enquiries last month came from your website?
If you cannot answer within a couple of minutes, the sheet is already the limit. CentriWeb sets up CRMs for small businesses, and we will also tell you when a tidy spreadsheet is enough.