Excel or business software when it pays to switch

When does it pay to move from Excel to business software?

When holding the spreadsheets together costs more than a system that replaces them. Headcount matters little. A company of eight people who all write in the same file can need it more than one of thirty where each department keeps its own sheet and nobody cross-checks it with the others. Nor is it a step everyone has already taken: according to ISTAT, in 2025 business software was used by 56.0% of Italian companies with at least 10 employees.

Excel was born as a personal spreadsheet, and for calculating, analysing or testing a scenario it remains hard to beat. It becomes a problem when it acts as the company's shared archive: the rows are jobs, orders, hours and materials, several people write in the same files, and formulas link one file to another. What is missing there is what business software takes for granted: who can see and change what, job by job, and a piece of data written once and read by everyone. The checks that stop a wrong value before it gets in are missing too.

No signal decides alone. The answers of the AI assistants we read on 23 October 2026 give a threshold of two or three signals, with no study behind it; which signal you have matters more. If you have to wait until a job is closed to know how much you earn on it, the problem is no longer the spreadsheet: it is that you decide without the data.

How much does staying on Excel cost you?

The cost of Excel is not the licence, it is people's time: with round numbers, three people losing two hours a week each on it cost 8,100 € a year. Do the sum with your own numbers: the hours spent every week copying, searching and reconciling files, times the company cost of whoever spends them, times the weeks worked in a year. The example uses 30 € an hour of company cost for 45 weeks, figures to replace with yours.

Then there are the errors, which in a spreadsheet are the rule. Ray Panko, of the University of Hawaii, collected the audits done by researchers and auditing firms on spreadsheets actually used in companies. In the five studies with the most rigorous method, 55 spreadsheets in all, 91% contained important errors; widening to nine studies and 163 spreadsheets, 84% contained errors. In experiments, people looking for errors in a spreadsheet find about 60% of them. Put in the sum the ones you saw in the last year: a variation not invoiced, a material ordered twice, an old price in a quote.

If the sum exceeds what business software costs in a year, staying on Excel is the most expensive choice, even if it appears on no invoice.

What are the ways out of Excel?

There are four, and many companies take two of them, one after the other.

The first step is tidying up Excel, and sometimes it is enough. With Microsoft 365 several people edit the same file at the same time and see the others' changes within seconds. According to Microsoft's guide you need a Microsoft 365 subscription and the file in xlsx, xlsm or xlsb format, saved on OneDrive or SharePoint Online. Together with tables, drop-down lists, protected cells and one person responsible for each file, it removes copies and overwrites. It does not remove the rest: a spreadsheet does not show each person only their own jobs, does not send an approval request, and filling it in from a phone, on site or on the shop floor, is awkward. Halfway between a spreadsheet and business software sit the low-code platforms, which have their own comparison with custom development.

Between off-the-shelf and custom the choice has a guide of its own, the pros and cons of custom software, with seven questions to decide. The short rule comes back in almost every answer: standard for the work that is the same as everyone's, custom only for the part that sets you apart. For those leaving Excel there is one more test, the most useful: bring the supplier a real job of yours, closed recently, and ask them to redo it in their product. It has to include the variations, the material that arrived late and the hours. If handling it needs customisations already during the demo, that product will send you back to Excel.

How much does it cost to move to business software?

An off-the-shelf system is paid by subscription, almost always per user per month: at list price, from 14.90 € with Odoo to 95.30 € with Business Central Premium, plus the start-up. On 23 October 2026 Odoo costs 14.90 € per user per month on the Standard plan, with all apps and annual billing, and a discount for the first twelve months. On the same date Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central costs 69.30 € on the Essentials plan and 95.30 € on Premium, which adds manufacturing, again per user per month with annual billing. Microsoft quotes them excluding VAT, while Odoo does not say whether VAT is included. Neither includes the start-up: configuration, data migration and training are paid to whoever does them, the vendor or one of its partners. For the start-up, the answers of AI assistants give ranges from a few thousand to tens of thousands of euros, almost always without a primary source: ask for its quote together with the subscription's.

With us the thresholds of every custom project apply. A first module, meaning a single function in production, for example jobs with hours entered from a phone, starts at 10,000 € with 6-8 weeks of work. An essential management system, like the one for a garage in the guide to costs, starts at about 15,000 € with 2-3 months. A platform with several departments and roles and integrations with ERP and CRM starts at 45,000 €. The top of the range is written in the contract.

The two figures are compared over three years and on the same functions, with the sum in the guide to custom software: the subscription of an off-the-shelf product grows with people, custom software costs more at the start. Next to both goes the cost of staying on Excel, the one you calculated above.

How do you move from Excel to business software without stopping work?

Step by step, with Excel alongside until the new system gives the same numbers. You do not need to replace everything at once: you start from the point that hurts most today, and the rest follows.

1. The map of the files: which exist, who updates them, which data passes from one to another, from quote to invoice.
2. One owner for each piece of data: customer, job, hours, materials and margin are written once, in one place, and the others read them.
3. Clean master data before migrating: customers, items and price lists without duplicates, consistent job codes.
4. The open jobs go into the new system; the closed ones stay in Excel, read-only, to look up.
5. A trial on a few real jobs, with Excel kept as a check, until the margins match.
6. Hours and materials entered by whoever does the work, from a phone, the same day.
7. The measurement after two or three months: time spent on the files, jobs with an updated margin, errors.

The sixth step is the one that decides. If the hours go back to the office at the end of the month to be copied, you have changed the tool but not the problem. In one of our projects for a consulting group with professionals all over Italy, jobs, hours entered from a smartphone and reports by job, client and professional sit in a single system, instead of email and Excel spreadsheets. It is the case study on resource and job planning.

What about production planning in Excel?

It holds with few machines, simple batches and one person who plans. When the plan changes several times a day between rush orders, shifts, setups and missing materials, a spreadsheet does not recalculate what happens to the other jobs if you move one. Then you need finite-capacity planning software, called APS (Advanced Planning and Scheduling), connected to the management system.

If you already have an ERP, look first at what its production module does: what you are looking for is often already there. Where planning ends and what happens on the shop floor begins is in the guide to ERP and MES.

An example: 20 people, plant installations to order, three Excel files

A company of 20 people builds plant installations to order. Quotes, hours and materials sit in three Excel files, and only the office knows how to update them. On 23 October 2026 we asked Google, ChatGPT and Perplexity how to tell whether it is time to move to business software, and what it costs. Among Google's results no page answers this case; Google's AI Mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity do, and they agree on the signals.

They say that with one person holding the files the company is already in the risk zone, and that the deciding signal is another: not knowing in time how much it earns on each job without asking the office. On costs they do not match. For the first year of an off-the-shelf system Google's AI Mode says 5,000-12,000 €, Perplexity 8,000-18,000 €, ChatGPT 3,000-10,000 € a year, and none of the three brings a primary source for these figures.

From there, the way that pays is this:

1. a single job code, linking quote, hours, materials and invoice;
2. hours and materials entered by the technicians from a phone, the same day, with the office checking instead of copying;
3. the trial: redo a closed job in the new system, then two or three open jobs with Excel alongside;
4. the choice: if an off-the-shelf product follows quotes, hours and materials the way you do them, the off-the-shelf product. If your jobs have variations, phases or on-site work that no product follows without forcing, the job part built custom, connected to the accounting system you have.

For the second way, a first module, jobs with hours from a phone, starts at 10,000 €. If an off-the-shelf product is enough for you, we tell you before the quote, because custom software that is not needed suits neither of us.

When does it pay to stay on Excel?

When you have few jobs a year, the same person follows them all and the way you work stays the same: then a tidy file, in the cloud, with one person responsible, costs less than any management system. That person, though, must have time to keep hours, materials and invoices up to date. And when the process changes every week: first it must be made stable, then you choose the system, otherwise you carry the disorder into software.

Excel stays useful after the switch too. It is for analysing, simulating, preparing an offer, reading the data the management system exports instead of being its archive.

Sources and further reading

• Ray Panko, “Audits of Operational Spreadsheets”, Spreadsheet Research, University of Hawaiipanko.com, accessed 23 October 2026
• Microsoft, “Collaborate on Excel workbooks at the same time with co-authoring”support.microsoft.com, accessed 23 October 2026
• Odoo, “Tariffe Odoo” (Odoo pricing)odoo.com, in Italian, accessed 23 October 2026
• Microsoft, “Prezzi di Business Central” (Business Central pricing), Dynamics 365microsoft.com, in Italian, accessed 23 October 2026
• ISTAT, “Imprese e ICT, anno 2025” (Enterprises and ICT, 2025), 15 December 2025istat.it, in Italian, accessed 23 October 2026