In this solo explainer, Sachin Sharma, founder of ProcureDesk, outlines four clear warning signs that indicate a company’s accounts‑payable (AP) team has outgrown spreadsheet‑based purchase‑order management and should transition to a dedicated procurement system. He first describes the chaos of version‑control when multiple spreadsheet copies (e.g., 1.2, 1.3) exist, forcing users to spend significant time identifying the latest data. Next, he highlights update problems that surface once a team processes more than about 50 purchase orders per month, leading to outdated information and loss of trust. He then discusses performance degradation that occurs with large data sets—typically over a thousand PO records—where spreadsheets become sluggish or fail to load promptly. Finally, he points out the lack of real‑time budget visibility, which causes teams to discover overspending only after month‑end. Throughout, Sachin frames these pain points as a compelling case for moving to a conventional procurement platform, and he concludes with a call‑to‑action inviting viewers to contact ProcureDesk for a solution.
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People often ask me this question, when is a good time to move away from spreadsheets if you're using it for managing purchase orders? And my answer is always the same when you can't keep up with the versions. So if you are struggling with managing purchasing in spreadsheets or asking this question, this video is for you. Because here I'm going to talk about three signs that tells you that it's time to move away from spreadsheets and implement a maybe a better process, better procurement system and so on. If you're joining me for the first time, welcome. My name is Sachin. I am the founder of Procuredesk, where we help growing companies with managing their purchasing systems. All right, so let's jump right in. Number one is you can't keep up with version controls, right? Always happens if you're using spreadsheets, people are creating new versions, 1.2.3 and you don't know which one is the latest. I was talking to one controller and before they implemented a system, I used to have three or four versions and I had to spend half an hour figuring out which one is right. And sometimes I had information across multiple versions. So consolidating them become real pain. So that's sign number one is where you probably need a better system. Number two is update problems. You are, you're not able to keep up with the, I would say updating the spreadsheet. So what do I mean by that? If you are creating maybe more than 50 purchase orders a month, we start seeing this where the updates are not happening on the spreadsheet. So updates could be change in amount. You did a change order, change in delivery dates or change in items, for example, you changed, you know, you send something to the vendor, vendor says, I don't have this, here's a substitute, right? That is changed. So in the beginning it's fine because the volume is low, you can keep up with the changes, but at certain volume, typically it's 50 purchase orders a month. You are unable to keep up with the volume. What happens as a result of that is you have an outdated spreadsheet, which means outdated data you can't trust. So people stop messing that, right? So that's kind of number two. Number three is volume. So even if, let's say you're doing an awesome job at maintaining the spreadsheet, keeping it updated and so on, at some point it is going to stop loading so it can't keep up with the volume. Let's say you have thousands of purchase orders in a spreadsheet. It takes five minutes for it to open up. Depending on how strong your computer is, or if you're using Google Sheets, it might just take more time for it to pull all the data. So at a certain volume, again, I think I would say thousand plus records, you would start seeing kind of the slowdown in terms of depending on how big your purchase orders are. And number four is, I would say visibility. You don't have visibility into what's going on with your budgets. So think about, you know, if you're struggling with budget visibility. So every month you go over budget and then you try to figure out why you did that. It's the problem with spreadsheets, right? So if you're using a spreadsheet to track what happened in that month, generally what happens is you're doing that at the end of the month. By that time it's too late, you have already spent that money and you have gone over budget. So if you are struggling with these four issues, right, version control updates, you can't keep up with the updates, volume problems or budget visibility. It's time to move away from spreadsheets and move into a more, I would say, conventional procurement system that can keep up with all these four items. If you are in the market for a procurement solution or you're struggling with these issues, click on the link below and talk to one of our product specialists to see if procuredesk can help you with these. Thanks for joining me today and I'll see you in the next video. Thanks for watching.
