Forbes provides "3 reasons why replacing Microsoft Excel is worth money to a boss"

No doubt, Excel is a powerful and important software for the business world, but for many professions, relying too heavily on Excel for key tracking and calculations opens the organization up to costly errors. In a recent Forbes article, Meta S. Brown provides 3 reasons organizations should stop using Excel for their every tracking and calculating needs and invest in purpose-built software.

1. The time spent setting up and maintaining Excel documents takes up a lot of expensive labor

“When you see someone hunched over spreadsheets all day, you’re really seeing potential to automate some operations and devote that person to more profitable (and satisfying) work.”

2. Spreadsheet errors leave the business open to risk

Brown cites studies that indicate that even the most conservative estimates put the error rate in Excel spreadsheets at 1 in 100. The more your business relies on Excel, the more information and processes are open to these spreadsheet errors.

3. When spreadsheet creators leave, knowledge leaves with them.

“Over time, the people who made the spreadsheets make changes, and then they change the changes. They have no records of what they’ve done, and nobody has seriously checked the work.”

Rather than depend solely on Excel for all business processes, Brown recommends taking the time to identify, purchase and implement purpose-built software that benefits from professional design, quality assurance, user testing, and documentation to reduce the risk inherent in spreadsheets.

Read the full article on Forbes.com.