Simplicity Beats Complexity: Your Spreadsheet Might Be Fine

"Things don't have to be complicated for them to be useful. In fact, I prefer simplicity."

I said this to a client who was apologizing for their "elementary" spreadsheets. They thought I'd judge them for not using fancier software.

The opposite is true. I was relieved.

A spreadsheet that works is better than enterprise software that doesn't.

The Complexity Trap

There's a pattern I see constantly with small business owners.

They feel like their operations are "messy." They look at bigger companies with fancy dashboards and integrated systems. They think: "If I just had better software, everything would be organized."

So they buy software. Project management tools. CRM platforms. Accounting add-ons. Integration services.

Now they have six systems instead of one spreadsheet. Nothing talks to each other. Half the features go unused. And the actual work—the thing that makes money—gets buried under administrative overhead.

The spreadsheet wasn't the problem. The belief that complexity equals professionalism was the problem.

Why Spreadsheets Work

Let me defend the humble spreadsheet for a moment.

Spreadsheets require no learning curve. Everyone knows how to use them. Your office manager knows. Your partner knows. That new hire you bring on next month will know. There's no training period, no onboarding, no "figuring out the system."

Spreadsheets are infinitely flexible. Need to track something new? Add a column. Want to see the data differently? Create a new tab. The tool bends to your process, not the other way around.

Spreadsheets are visible. Everything is right there in front of you. You can see all the data at once. You can scroll through and spot problems. There's no hidden logic, no black boxes, no "the system does something with this data but I'm not sure what."

For small businesses—especially service businesses with relatively simple operations—a well-structured spreadsheet often handles everything you need.

When Spreadsheets Break Down

That said, spreadsheets have limits.

They break when multiple people need to update the same data simultaneously. Version control becomes a nightmare. "Which file is the latest one?" is a question that should never have to be asked.

They struggle when you need automated actions. A spreadsheet can store data about appointments, but it can't send reminder texts. It can track leads, but it can't automatically follow up.

They become unwieldy with scale. A few hundred rows? Fine. Thousands of transactions across years? The spreadsheet gets slow, hard to navigate, and prone to errors.

And they're vulnerable. One accidental deletion, one formula broken by a paste operation, and critical data can be corrupted. There's no audit trail, no undo history beyond the current session.

When you hit these limits—when the spreadsheet genuinely can't do what you need—that's when you upgrade to specialized software. Not before.

The Right Question to Ask

Before adopting new software, ask: "What specific problem am I solving?"

Not "what could this software do for me someday?" Not "what do successful companies use?" Not "what looks professional?"

What specific problem? Right now. Today.

If your spreadsheet is working—if you can find the information you need, track what matters, and make decisions based on your data—why replace it?

The upgrade should solve a real pain point. Something that costs you time, money, or customers. Something you can point to and say: "This is broken and here's how the new tool fixes it."

The Integration Fallacy

Here's where things go wrong: people buy software hoping it will "integrate everything."

The promise is seductive. All your data in one place. Everything connected. Seamless workflows.

The reality is different. Each new tool has its own way of doing things. Getting them to talk to each other requires configuration, sometimes custom development. Data formats don't match. Updates break integrations. And you end up spending hours maintaining the connections instead of doing work.

Sometimes the "integrated system" is actually more fragmented than the spreadsheet was. At least the spreadsheet had everything in one place.

My Approach

When I work with clients, I start with what they already have.

Show me your spreadsheets. Show me your Google Docs. Show me the napkin notes and text message threads and calendar reminders. Show me how you actually run your business.

Then I figure out: what's working and what's not? Where are the real bottlenecks? What needs to be automated versus what just needs to be tidied up?

Often the answer isn't "throw everything out and start over." It's "move this one part to a better tool and keep the rest."

The spreadsheet for tracking customer history? It's fine. Keep it. The manual texting for appointment confirmations? That should be automated. The multiple tabs trying to be a CRM? Maybe upgrade that to actual CRM software.

Targeted improvements. Not wholesale replacement.

Keep What Works

I had a client whose data analyst—someone who knows all the fancy tools—still does most of her work in Excel. Not because she doesn't know better. Because Excel works for what she does.

There's no prize for complexity. Nobody is impressed that you use expensive software. What matters is whether you can run your business, serve your customers, and grow.

If a spreadsheet does that for you, keep the spreadsheet.

Simplicity beats complexity. Every time.