Carew vs Microsoft Excel

The short answer

Keep Excel for financial models, analysis, one-off reports and anything that changes shape every month. Formulas, pivot tables and Power Query will do more than most people ever ask of them.

Move to a system when the same workbook is copied every month, several people need to edit it at once, macros hold the process together, or one person is the only one who understands it.

Side by side

Area	Carew	Microsoft Excel
Cost	One fixed price for the build	Included in the Microsoft 365 licences you already pay for
Building it	Weeks, with a written plan and one fixed price first	Days or weeks of a skilled person's time for a workbook the business can rely on
Keeping it working	Changes made and tested by the people who built it	Depends on whoever wrote the formulas and macros. VBA is hard to read and rarely tested
Several people at once	Each person sees and edits what their role allows	Co-authoring works for files kept in OneDrive or SharePoint. Copies sent by email drift apart
Permissions	Set by role, down to individual records	Sheet and workbook protection, which is easy to get round
History	Every change logged with who made it and when	Version history for files kept in OneDrive or SharePoint
Data from other tools	Imported from Xero, Shopify and others, or from their exports	Power Query can pull data in, if someone builds and maintains the queries
On a phone	Built for the phone browser as well as the desktop	The Excel app works for viewing and light edits
Size	A database built for the job	Large workbooks slow down, and each sheet stops at 1,048,576 rows

Excel details are based on Microsoft's documentation for Microsoft 365 and may change.

When Microsoft Excel is the better choice

If you are modelling, analysing or reporting, and the person who builds the workbook is the person who uses it, Excel is the right tool. It is already on every desk, and nothing custom will match it for working something out.

When Carew is the better choice

West Country Renovations built each monthly valuation in its own Excel workbook, from Timely exports and Xero bills. The process took three to six weeks, and changes to job coding were not tracked.

The system that replaced it works out each valuation from coded timesheet and supplier lines, logs every change and still exports to Excel for clients who want a spreadsheet. Valuations now go out within five working days of month end.

Questions