Putting Spreadsheets in their place
Written by Andrew Taylor – CEO of Integral Ltd
Delivering Control, Simply
When the pressure is on, as it is in incident management – complaints, audits, H&S, or R&M – you need assurance the source of your information is accurate, and that you are able to generate reports fast.
Many businesses put total faith in spreadsheets to manage the entire data flow and communicate their critical information, despite growing arguments against absolute dependency.
The result is putting up with cumbersome, at times error-ridden, reporting, analysis, scheduling, graphing, inventory, budget tracking, and above all project management. Add in individual habits, from version control to formula creation; the outcome is near impossible to audit. Fixing a broken spreadsheet is a manual, tedious nightmare.
Spreadsheets are embedded in all-sized organisations. But they can get out of control and we believe there is a way to rein them in.
When faced with an incident, if not using spreadsheets for converging all the critical details, then what are the tools for tracking, response, and control?
Integralโs compliance register application, ICRA, gives the ability to have that one source of truth. Schedule and monitor workflow by company, site, and team members via dashboards and emails. Trace issues by category, product, and production batch. Attach documents, photos, investigation, and close-out details to an incident. Thereโs potential to integrate with ERP, Production, CRM, and other applications. Youโll have peace of mind that the spreadsheet data that falls out is reliable.
Another package, ShareIT, is designed to simplify the process of managing multiple shareholders associated with Mฤori trusts, private companies, and co-operatives. Often the information is held within multiple spreadsheets becoming unwieldy to keep up to date. With ShareIT, payments of dividends are hassle-free and quick. Share transactions are traceable, standing up to the scrutiny of auditors. Automated AML checking at the click of a button saves time and effort. Electronic document storage ensures those all-important shareholder documents are safe and all together.
At Integral we are intent on delivering businesses control, simplifying information management and data integration. We can show you how taking your current spreadsheets and loading them into cloud-based applications will smooth business process and take a load off your mind.
