Macros…when you first discover them, they are pretty exciting, there are so many different ways you can use them. What’s great is with a few Google searches and some trial-and-error practice, you can soon be off and away creating your own macros with no programming experience. Whether you choose to manually record the steps you take or go the more complex route of VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) programming, getting those pesky repetitive tasks automated can certainly make life easier…to an extent.
Now if you are running a local club and just want to keep track of your basic funds, with some snazzy formulas and time saving macros then go for it. It’s cheap, relatively quick if you are tech savvy and when done well, saves time.
If you are running a more than a hobby business however, you may want to be aware of the risks and limitations that come with relying on macros.
The biggest one we see with our clients is an over-reliance on “Garry from accounts” who knows how this all works. When Garry goes on leave, things can break leaving you stuck without that key report until they return. Worse is when Garry decides to make their next career move, the report stops working at end of month, and it becomes an absolute nightmare for someone else to unravel. It’s messy, stressful and time consuming. More often than not, you are better off starting from scratch.
Another thing to consider is the lack of scalability. When the executive team get word of Garry’s wiz-bang spreadsheet, they try to implement it across the whole organisation and find that it can’t integrate with many of their systems, and version control can become a challenge as people copy, paste and fiddle.
As more people use the spreadsheet, you soon discover there is no global “undo” function. Excel is not designed to manage data in a way that provides you peace of mind, for example there is no audit log to show “who deleted row 29!!!”.
This organic evolving of a spreadsheet also means that there is limited ability to provide support, advice and measured improvements. Developments are unstructured, ad hoc and can end up being more trouble than they are worth.
So, what’s the alternative? Well lucky for you, we no longer live in the 80’s and there are a plethora of alternative systems that can manage your data in a secure, user friendly and customisable way. If you are ready to make the switch, have a chat with our friendly team who will be more than happy to walk you through the next steps.