Is it profitable to use Excel to automate everyday work?

Excel in Business — a Powerful Tool That Quickly Turns into Chaos

Microsoft Excel has been one of the main tools used in companies to work with data for years. It allows a number of functions, such as importing, filtering data or creating datasets. Every intermediate user of Excel can calculate budgets, create schedules, statements or reports in it. The problem arises when the number of sheets and Excel files in the company begins to exceed the capabilities of the teams. Data is scattered, Excel sheets are duplicated, and any change requires manual updating in multiple places.

Many enterprises that use Microsoft Excel lack data centralization, file versioning, and automatic information flow. Employees waste hours on repetitive tasks such as entering data, filtering, copying, or creating reports that are manually populated with the same data sources every month.

An even bigger problem is working on local files, that is, downloading files by employees and exchanging them with each other via e-mail. Although this happens extremely rarely now, some companies still operate this way. Such work with Excel sheets is not only inefficient, but even irrational - it leads to version chaos, data loss and a significant slowdown of business processes. Instead of working on documents at the same time, employees are still waiting for someone else to edit and send the file back to them, or they set up parallel versions in the hope that it will speed up their work. Unfortunately, this very quickly turns into informational chaos - no one knows what version of the quarterly budget is current, whether each responsible person has already received and confirmed the file, or who and what changes to the document made.

‍

All this means that although Excel continues to be helpful when working with data, more and more companies decide to go a step further and look for solutions that respond better to the needs of the growing scale of operations and the demands of the modern work environment.

Automate tasks in Excel — the first step to getting your work organized

This does not mean that Excel has no potential. With automation add-ons such as Power Query, PivotTables, and Visual Basic Applications (VBA), advanced Excel automation is possible. Businesses can deploy macros, use VBA, and even use automation add-ons to generate reports, create alerts, and automatically convert and analyze data.

Excel automation can significantly streamline daily work and improve processes — an ideal transition stage when your business is not yet ready to fully switch to more advanced automation tools. What could be an example of task automation in Excel? One of most common automation is generating monthly sales statements or sending reports to customers based on source data. Business processes based od Excel's functions, such as creating VBA macros or VBA scripts, can save your company time and help you avoid mistakes.

When Creating Excel Automation is not Enough — Problems You May Face

Although there are some benefits to automating tasks in Excel, more and more companies are choosing to go one step further and abandon Excel spreadsheets altogether. This is because this tool, despite its flexibility and wide range of automation functions (such as formulas, pivot tables or VBA macros), has its limitations. As the needs of teams and the scale of business operations grow, problems arise that cannot be easily solved in a spreadsheet. One way to avoid problems with using Excel is to migrate your data and processes to no-code or low-code tools. Such technological solutions in many cases can completely replace Excel - we will tell you more about this technology later in the article.

Below are 5 limitations you may encounter when using Microsoft Excel:

Limitations in the automation of complex business processes

Excel works well for simple tasks, but with more complex business processes, its limitations begin to reveal itself. Process automation such as the approval of documents, the circulation of requests or the handling of requests between departments, requires logical mechanisms, decision-making conditions and related actions that the sheet does not offer natively. Creating VBA macros can help automate repetitive tasks, but it won't replace a dedicated workflow system. Automation in Excel is usually limited to converting, copying, or filtering data, rather than fully managing the process. In addition, each automation step requires manual configuration, writing code, or using simple Excel functions that do not take into account complex dependencies between steps. Even the addition of automation will not change the fact that Excel functions are not designed to model workflows. In dynamic organizations, where processes require the integration of multiple roles and data sources, the sheet thus becomes a bottleneck, since its integration with other systems can be difficult or even avoidable (we will develop this topic in the next paragraph). In such cases, no-code applications that allow you to visually build the logic of processes and monitor them in real time are better suited. Excel can then remain an auxiliary tool — for example, for analyzing data or creating reports — but not a central element of the company's operating system.

Difficulties integrating with other non-Microsoft systems

Excel is not a tool that is naturally adapted to integrate with external IT ecosystems. Process automation often requires the transfer of data between different applications, ERP systems, CRM, OMS, WMS, accounting programs - and this is where the spreadsheet begins to stand out. It is possible to use VBA or COM add-ins to connect to external data sources, but this is time-consuming, requires specialized knowledge, and often involves the risk of errors. Automating tasks such as importing data, synchronizing statuses or generating business reports requires custom solutions. VBA scripts can be difficult to maintain, and modifying them by someone without much experience with Microsoft systems can lead to serious data quality problems. There is also a lack of ready-made interfaces to support popular tools, which makes the integration process slower and less flexible than in no-code systems. Even the use of automation add-ons does not guarantee full compatibility with modern SaaS platforms. Therefore, in situations where Excel data needs to be synchronized with multiple systems outside of the Microsoft environment, it is worth considering more specialized solutions with built-in integration logic.

Lack of reactivity to events

One of the significant limitations of Excel in the context of business process automation is the lack of native reactivity to external events. In a traditional spreadsheet, it is the user who has to perform some action — open a file, update the data, make changes — for anything to happen. Excel itself will not respond to the appearance of a new document in circulation, an incoming email, or a change in an external system. For example, if a new invoice is sent to a company, someone has to manually add it to the corresponding sheet. The use of tools for process automation allows such events to be detected automatically — for example, by integrating with the mailbox, scanning folders or direct connection to the database — and to update the data yourself or start the next steps of the process.

Yes, Excel offers some forms of automation, such as VBA, Power Query, and integration with Power Automate, but each of these methods has serious limitations. VBA scripts work only locally, only when the Excel file is open, and require manual startup or user activity. So they can't run in the background or listen to events from other systems in real time. What's more, macros are often blocked by security policies in organizations, and their development and maintenance requires knowledge of code and extreme caution — one mistake can lock an entire file. Power Automate, on the other hand, although it offers greater integration possibilities, still relies on external connections and has its limitations in terms of scale, speed and flexibility of operation in conjunction with Excel.

In practice, this means that Excel is not adapted to processes in which data must be processed on an ongoing basis, automatically and without human participation. The lack of true responsiveness makes it difficult to implement automation on a larger scale and means that many activities still require manual intervention, increasing the risk of errors, increasing the time to complete tasks and limiting the possibilities for process development.

Lack of data context and flexible user views

Unlike modern no/low-code applications, Excel does not allow you to create user roles or views tailored to your work context. Every Excel user sees the same spreadsheet, which leads to chaos, excess information, and the risk of accidentally modifying the data. This is especially important if we want to increase access to data — not every employee should be able to see and change all the information. What is missing here is a mechanism that would allow, for example, to filter data automatically for a specific person or team. Automating tasks in Excel does not solve this problem because it is based on a single data structure visible to everyone. VBA macros can partially hide some information, but they do not give true personalization. Moreover, changing the layout of a sheet by one user affects the comfort of the work of others — the more people working on one sheet, the more chaos is generated. In modern applications, it is possible to dynamically generate views that depend on the user's role — in Excel, such a solution would require advanced VBA code and a very complicated implementation process. So Excel automation is a good local tool, but not a system tool. When a team needs multiple views and real-time data filtering, a better direction is to move to platforms designed for contextual work.

Reduced performance with large volumes of data

Excel is great for analyzing small data sets, but as the scale increases, the tool begins to reveal its limitations. When a spreadsheet contains tens or hundreds of thousands of rows, formulas, PivotTables or even simple filters slow down considerably. In many cases, automating Excel with VBA macros is no longer sufficient — scripts can crash or generate errors due to overload. Performance is further reduced when an Excel user tries to combine data from different sources, such as through Power Query. Automating tasks in such large sets requires precise code optimization and a good knowledge of Excel functions. An example of task automation that works well on a small sample may not be suitable for use in mass analyses. For large volumes, it is better to use databases or low-code applications that are optimized for data processing and filtering. Even the most advanced spreadsheet features have their limits and can generate more problems than benefits in an environment that demands speed and reliability.

Other solutions to automate data management

As we wrote earlier, instead of investing time and resources in expanding complex Excel files and creating complex VBA macros, many companies today choose to migrate to modern no-code or low-code platforms. These solutions combine the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the capabilities of databases, web applications and process management systems. Examples of such solutions include Smartsheet, Glide and AirTable — tools that allow you to create flexible, scalable work environments without having to write code.

‍

It's easy to automate data entry, organize workflows, and keep your team up to date information — even from a browser or mobile device. They allow you to build business applications — such as registers, reports, reporting systems or analytical panels — in a graphical environment, that is, without the need to write code. Unlike Excel, these tools work in real time, support multi-user collaboration, centralize data, and allow you to create automated workflows that run on the basis of specific events. In situations where a company has multiple parallel Excel worksheets and a lack of consistent data flow, switching to a low-code tool can be a huge step towards modern, organized work.

‍

When automation of work with Excel is profitable

Automation of work in Excel is not always a mistake, there are cases of its justified use as long as it is applied in the right context. It is not always worth investing in advanced systems right away - sometimes a well-optimized spreadsheet is enough to organize processes and reduce manual labor. Below are the situations in which Excel automation is profitable and justified:

1. When processes are “self-sufficient” and do not require integration with other systems or use only Microsoft tools

If the entire process can be closed within Excel (or tools in its ecosystem, such as Power Query or Outlook), automation makes real sense. This means that data is entered, processed and used without the need to communicate with external systems. An example of such automation can be the preparation of a monthly sales report based on data from several Excel files, with automatic filtering and sending by e-mail to selected recipients - all carried out within the Microsoft environment (although of course not comprehensively, since the download of sales data or its manual filling is also carried out using external tools). In such cases, automation allows you to partially save time, reduce errors in calculations and speed up operational activities without the need to implement more extensive solutions.

2. When Excel serves as a tool for testing and prototyping new processes

Excel can be a great environment to quickly test an automation idea before a company invests time and resources in developing it on a larger scale. With simple formulas, you can build a working prototype of an automated process and see if it actually brings the intended benefits. For example, the company wants to automate the process of preparing a statement of outstanding customer payments and reminding them by email. Instead of building an extensive reminder system right away, you first create a file in Excel to which employees will transfer invoice data, and then Excel automation will filter out unpaid items, create ready-made email messages, and export them to Outlook using VBA. After a few weeks of using such a solution, the team can check whether the way of working suits their needs, where there are bottlenecks and whether it is worth developing this process further — for example, by creating a dedicated integration with the invoicing tool. Thanks to this, Excel becomes a safe “testing ground” that allows you to cheaply and quickly see if the idea of automation makes sense.

Need help migrating from Excel? Let's talk

Excel can be an effective tool for automating simple, repetitive tasks, especially in companies that do not yet need advanced systems. Its capabilities work best when processes are closed in the Microsoft ecosystem and do not require complex integration. However, as the company grows and the complexity of data increases, Excel begins to limit the scalability and transparency of work. If you need help moving your automation or data from Excel to more advanced tools, schedule a free online call with us — we'll help you organize your data and implement truly cost-effective process automation.