spreadsheets

[captnKB]

Working on the section of our business plan related to tracking inputs to finished products, as well as cost. We are debating writing our spreadsheets in excel or using google spreadsheets. Anyone out there have any input? pros or cons of either?

[ebstauffer]

I'd use the one that you have access to from anywhere on any device.

[Old Glory Distilling Co.]

If I were to do it again, I'd try to strictly use Google Sheets. We used Excel and had the files shared across multiple computers through Dropbox. The problem we ran into was that multiple people/computers would have the file open, but only one person could make changes/see the changes (without saving, closing, reopening the file). If both people/computers made different changes on the file at the same time, we would end up saving over each other's work.

I think Office 365 would fix this problem, but we were only working with Office 2013.

With Google Sheets, all changes are live the moment they're made. Everybody can work on and see the changes others are making as they're happening. Not to mention - Google Sheets is free.

[Skaalvenn]

For something as valuable as a business plan I'd strongly suggest if you save it locally to do backups. Heck, back up the documents uploaded to google every now and then too.

In over 25 years of using computers nearly every day I have only had two hard drives fail. One back in the 90s, and the other a couple days after I finished my business plan.

Thankfully, by pure luck I backed up the hard drive a day before the most recent crash.

[captnKB]

Thank you all for the input. As of now I'm gonna go with google spreadsheets as I'm familiar with the problem cunnigham experienced in an office environment can be a real headache