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Plaanly vs Excel
Plaanly vs Excel for small businesses
We won't say Excel is bad — almost every small business starts there, and so did we. This page is about the moment it stops being enough.
Let's be fair
What Excel does well
Does any calculation
For one-off analysis, simulations and custom reports it's still unbeatable. We export to it.
Everyone knows it
Zero learning curve for whoever joins the company.
The problem
Where it breaks in a small business
The symptoms are always the same. If you recognise two, you're at the point of switching.
“Which version is the right one?”
clients_v3_final_FINAL.xlsx. Two people edit, one loses. No history of who changed what.
The sheet doesn't know what happened
The lead is “negotiating” — since when? Who spoke to them? Where's the email? The sheet stores the state, not the story.
Everything in a different sheet
Clients in one, proposals in another, leave in another, projects in Trello. Nothing links to anything; you are the link.
Side by side
What changes
| Excel / Google Sheets | Plaanly | |
|---|---|---|
| Pipeline | One row per lead, status in a column, manual filters. | Kanban with value per stage, inactivity alerts, history of every change. |
| Proposals | Word/PDF by email; you don't know if it was opened. | Public link in your brand, open tracking, online acceptance. |
| Client history | Notes in a cell, emails in Outlook, WhatsApp on the phone. | One feed with emails, messages, calls, proposals and notes. |
| Projects | Task list or manual Gantt. | Real-time kanban, timeline, costs and margin against the sold value. |
| Leave | Shared sheet, balance calculated by hand. | Request, approval, automatic balance, absences on the calendar. |
| Several people | Version conflicts or one person owning the file. | Everyone at once, role-based permissions, change history. |
| Cost | Included in Office / Google Workspace. | Per user, no lock-in. We talk and propose. |
Export everything to CSV whenever you want — Excel stays your analysis tool.
Migrate
Leave Excel without losing anything
A week is enough in most cases. What takes time isn't the import — it's deciding the pipeline stages.
- 1
Export the sheets to CSV
Contacts and companies with name, email, phone, VAT number. The importer detects duplicates.
- 2
Define the pipeline stages
Your “status” columns become stages with colour and probability. Create the leads in progress.
- 3
Connect email
From there each client's story builds itself. The old sheets stay as an archive.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Can I keep using Excel for analysis?
Yes. Export contacts, leads, proposals and costs to CSV at any time.
Does the import handle duplicates?
It detects by email and phone and lets you decide what to merge.
What about the formulas I have today?
If they are business calculations (margin, forecast), Plaanly already does them. If they are specific analyses, export and do them in Excel.
How long does the team take to adapt?
Anyone who can use Excel can use Plaanly. The first week is usually enough.
Shall we put your company in one place?
Tell us what you're using today. We'll show you how it looks in Plaanly.