01
Understand the real process
Including the rules that only exist in someone's head and the exceptions the sheet quietly handles.
What you need
When the spreadsheet becomes the risk.
Spreadsheets are excellent right up until the moment they are load-bearing. Then the tabs multiply, the formulas get fragile, two people edit at once, and the whole operation depends on one person who knows where the bodies are buried.
Why it matters
The short version.
Nobody decides to run an important process on a spreadsheet. It happens gradually: a list becomes a tracker, the tracker gains formulas, the formulas gain exceptions, and one day a genuine business process depends on a file that has no validation, no history, no permissions, and exactly one person who understands it.
The risk is rarely visible until it lands. A formula silently breaks and nobody notices for a fortnight. Two people edit different copies. The person who built it leaves. None of these are dramatic until the moment they are, and by then the cost is measured in scrambling rather than in software.
The most valuable part of replacing it is often the documentation. Mapping a spreadsheet forces the business rules out of one person's head and onto paper, usually for the first time. Clients regularly tell us that exercise alone changed how they understood their own process.
Mapping the spreadsheet forces the rules out of one person's head and onto paper, usually for the first time.
Is this you?
You probably need this if…
- One spreadsheet runs a critical process and one person understands it
- You email versions around and are never certain which is current
- Someone broke a formula and nobody noticed for a fortnight
- You cannot see who changed what, or when, or why
What's involved
The actual work.
No two engagements are identical, but this is the shape of it.
02
Model the data properly
Getting this right early is the difference between software that grows with you and software that fights you in year two.
03
Build the replacement
With validation, permissions, an audit trail and multiple people able to work at once.
04
Migrate the history
Your existing data moved across and reconciled, rehearsed before it counts.
What goes wrong
Mistakes worth
avoiding.
Named plainly, because most of them are easier to avoid than to undo.
-
Keeping the spreadsheet as a shadow system
If it stays in use "just for now", it stays forever and you have two sources of truth that disagree. Pick a date and retire it properly.
-
Migrating the data without cleaning it
Years of inconsistent entry moved faithfully into a clean system just makes the new system dirty on day one.
-
Not asking why the exceptions exist
Every odd rule was a response to something real. Removing it without understanding it removes the workaround and returns the original problem.
How it runs
Start to finish.
Each phase ends in something you can open, click or read.
-
01
Map it
Every column, rule and exception, documented properly for the first time.
-
02
Prototype
Tested with the person who currently owns the sheet.
-
03
Build
In stages, so value arrives before the whole thing is finished.
-
04
Switch over
With a parallel-run period, because nobody should cut over on faith.
Deliverables
What you walk
away with.
Yours to keep, whatever happens next.
A proper application with validation and permissions
Your historical data migrated and checked
An audit trail of who changed what
Documentation of the business rules, finally written down
Questions
Worth asking.
Anything else — email hello@haddon.software and a human replies the same business day.
Yes, and we usually recommend running both briefly so you can compare outputs and build confidence. Cutting over cold is how you lose a week to panic.
Then we build the parts that are stable and leave the volatile parts configurable. Hard-coding a process that changes monthly is a mistake we would rather avoid together.
Not always, and we will say so. If a product already fits your process well, buying it is the better answer. Custom earns its cost when your process is genuinely your advantage, or when nothing fits without contorting how you work.
Sometimes they are right, and it is worth listening. Spreadsheets are unmatched for ad-hoc analysis. Usually the answer is to replace the process parts — validation, workflow, history — and keep an export so people can still analyse freely.
A focused replacement of a single process is often six to ten weeks. What extends it is discovering that the one spreadsheet was actually four processes wearing a trenchcoat, which the discovery phase exists to find out early.
Related
You might also need…
Want to talk it through?
The first call is free, runs about thirty minutes, and you'll get a straight answer about whether we're the right fit — including when we're not.