Discover the new, free Excel

Could an advanced report look completely different?
New possibilities that change the way we work with spreadsheets.

Why do we use this tool even for planning a household budget?

Our experience and examples.

Let's start from the beginning. MS Excel, together with VBA for writing macros, was an everyday tool in my work. It let me pull the information I needed from databases and process it into reports. Depending on the workplace, this meant machine operating parameters, results from laboratory equipment, or data from publicly available climate databases (the weather database of the Maritime Office in Gdynia).

A revolutionary change

Four years ago things started to change: we began moving both client projects and the Excel spreadsheets we built for our own use to the cloud. What does that mean? It turned out that most of our current work could be moved to Google Sheets without any loss in presentation quality or functionality. I was very impressed that even mechanisms implemented as macros written in Visual Basic for Applications or as complex formulas worked in online spreadsheets. I moved all my new projects to online spreadsheets.

Advantages

This raises an interesting question: why don't we keep using Excel, since it is also evolving?
First of all, for our purposes Google Sheets is in no way inferior to advanced desktop spreadsheet applications. On the other hand, it has several undeniable advantages for us, including:

• it is available online – instead of email attachments, we send links to the spreadsheet. It is worth noting that sharing with selected people only is very well designed. Each person can be allowed to edit, view or comment.


• it is ideal for several people working online at the same time (even from different parts of the world). The most up-to-date data is always online and there is no need to version files when making changes.


• it can pull data from other Google Sheets, which means that if you have, say, 10 branches, you create a data template in one place and the data updates in the 10 other spreadsheets. This is very convenient for price lists for, say, 10 clients. There is no need to edit 10 spreadsheets separately.


• versioning and version restore. Every change in the spreadsheet is recorded with the date, time and location where it was made. This means there is no fear of anything being deleted. We can also easily restore or preview a version from a month ago.


• it is a free tool for everyone, available in the browser (so your client does not need to have Excel)


• the Google Script scripting language – lets more advanced users automate tasks and is easier to learn than VBA


• the Google Sheets mobile app – work with spreadsheets from your smartphone


• compatibility with spreadsheets – any Excel user will also be able to use Google Sheets.

All these advantages mean that I also use Google Sheets at home and to make the simplest tasks at work easier.

Examples of how we use it

• a confectionery – a spreadsheet prepared for a confectionery and its customers (shops) and drivers. It handles orders, deliveries and invoicing. A tailor-made, easy-to-use system. The main goals are to save time and to tighten up the sales system.


• order handling for an advertising company. We prepared spreadsheets where clients can order products from the range. The system helps manage prices, including promotional prices, and product shipping


• application translation for a manufacturing company – we prepared a spreadsheet that generates a special file for the firmware (device software) from phrase translations kept in a table. This makes it easy to quickly change and add further languages without laboriously writing program code.


• a billing spreadsheet – this one is our own idea. For clients who pay us “by the hour” or per job, we have prepared a spreadsheet they can check at any time to see how many hours we worked and on what. This makes things much easier, as our clients know exactly what they are paying for, and it gives us full control over project time.

For example, here is a link to a billing spreadsheet for partner companies.

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cFJw2eG5otS5a3NtYOi8S8576GNxoiZ2SRnspFb_sCI/edit?usp=sharing

And other examples

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19dRuOnA1HrqHPz8bkMS8pHjIpEt0Kn-eBPwCyICX6fU/edit#gid=904893745


• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X23rJ1CFDxnfluvV5wJ16NBXeNQHa7dLiU_Gkm6uO0o/edit?usp=sharing

Interested?

Get in touch – we will be happy to help and advise you on how to use these features in your business. We always like to start by giving advice, because we know that truly fascinating projects begin with a conversation.

For enquiries or a quote for a system based on Google Docs, please fill in the short form https://nautil.pl/kategoria/kontakt/#kontakt or contact us by phone.