Guides
Straight answers to the questions owners actually ask.
Short, honest, no email needed.
Should I just build my own software instead of paying for this?Sometimes — but only after four questions are answered in writing: who maintains it, what support costs, how you'd leave, and whether the security basics are covered. Most of the time the cheaper fix is cleaning the spreadsheet that fills the gap or connecting two tools you already pay for. Build only when the gap is stable, written down, and the price is for features you don't use.My tracking sheet is neat but I can't get any reports out of it — what's wrong?Almost every tracking sheet that won't report has the same structural problem — not a formula problem. Once you know what to look for, the fix is usually straightforward.I've hit 5–10 clients and I'm losing track of who I promised what — do I need a CRM, or is that overkill?Probably not yet. At 5–10 clients the thing that's actually broken is usually a missing next-action list and a fixed time to check it, not a missing database — add both first, and let what happens next tell you whether a CRM earns its keep.How do you manage estimates and quotations when every project is different?When every project is unique, the problem is usually not the quoting tool — it is that standard rates live in your head and accepted quotes never automatically become jobs.Every week I export, filter, total and email the same report by hand — how do I stop?The weekly report is almost always the same four manual steps done fresh each time — export, reshape, total, send — sitting in different places rather than one chain. Fix the steps one at a time: a clean export, one flat table, formulas instead of retyped totals, and only then a saved query or a schedule.When did Google Sheets stop being enough for your service business — what actually breaks first?It's rarely the spreadsheet itself. It's almost always one of four specific things: two people editing at once and overwriting each other, one person who's the only one who understands the formulas, no record of who changed what, or a sheet built for how the business worked a year ago. Name which one you actually have before assuming you need new software.If I cancel MYOB, will I still be able to see my old invoices?Cancelling a subscription usually ends your access to the software's copy of your records at some point, so take your own copy before you cancel rather than after.Why does my monthly total come back as zero after a payroll export?When a CSV export stores dates as text instead of real dates, any formula that adds by date range silently returns zero. The fix is two minutes; the check cell that makes it obvious is two more.How do I send a quote that shows one total, not every line item?Your costed sheet and your client's quote don't have to be the same document, so you can keep the detail for yourself and send a clean total instead.Excel isn't cutting it for tracking loaned-out samples — what do I do?A spreadsheet usually fails at loan tracking because it has no due-back date and no way to flag what's overdue, not because it's a spreadsheet.Why does the manual step always sit between two teams?Your spreadsheet is your org chart. The manual step in your workbook — the export, the re-key, the Friday rebuild — almost always sits where two teams don't talk to each other. Fix the handover, not just the formula, or the mess grows back.
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