Spreadsheets make a fine scratchpad. They make a terrible source of truth.
The trouble starts quietly. Someone exports customer data “just to clean it up.” Someone else adds a column for renewal dates. A third person copies the file to “test a formula” and saves it as customers-v3-final-FINAL.xlsx, which is how you know it will outlive us all.
Soon the spreadsheet stops being a tool and starts being a shadow database. It holds pricing rules, order status, inventory counts, lead notes, login crumbs, and a handful of cells colored red for reasons lost to time.
How spreadsheet sprawl breaks a business
Version conflicts turn into cash leaks.
Two people update the same row in two different files. Both are “right” inside their own copy. The next call with a customer becomes a scavenger hunt: which file is true, and why does the invoice match neither?
Excel can be shared, sure. But sharing does not create data integrity. Spreadsheets have no real concept of a single authoritative record with enforced rules across everyone’s edits.
Permissions become a punchline.
You can password-protect a workbook and call it “security.” You can also lock your front door and leave the key under the mat.
Mistakes here are not theoretical. Data exposure is a routine event across the economy. IBM’s annual report puts the average cost of a data breach at $4.88 million in 2024, the highest on record (IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024). Small businesses do not get a discount.
Errors scale faster than your headcount.
A spreadsheet invites silent failure. One bad sort. One accidental paste. One formula dragged one cell too far.
Academic work keeps finding the same ugly thing: spreadsheet errors are common. Raymond Panko’s review of field audits reported that a large share of real-world spreadsheets contain errors, often in the majority of models examined (Panko, “What We Know About Spreadsheet Errors”). The point is not to panic. The point is to stop betting payroll on a grid designed for convenience, not control.
The moment to upgrade
Upgrade when any of these feel normal:
- People ask, “Which tab is correct?”
- A single file needs to be emailed, Slack’d, and reattached to calendar invites to be “accessible.”
- Someone is afraid to touch the sheet because “the formulas might break.”
- A customer calls and your answer depends on who last exported the data.
This is not a call to throw away spreadsheets. Keep them for analysis, one-off reporting, quick math, and exporting slices of data. Just stop using them as the system of record.
A practical alternative: MySQL as the truth, with a proper front end
Many small businesses already have MySQL or MariaDB somewhere in the stack: an ecommerce platform, a booking tool, an internal app, a reporting database. The database is the right place for shared truth. It enforces structure. It can log changes. It can be backed up. It can handle multiple users without devolving into file roulette.
The usual snag is the interface. Most teams do not want to live in SQL queries or a developer ticket queue.
InfoLobby solves that part.
You connect InfoLobby to your existing MySQL database. No migration. No code. Your data stays where it is.
Then you give your team a clean workspace:
- Grid views for browsing and editing records without fear of “sorting the universe.”
- Forms for focused updates that do not invite accidental column surgery.
- Search that finds the record you need without a 14-step filter ritual.
- Role-based permissions per workspace: Read Only, Read & Write, Admin. Your contractor can update orders without seeing payroll.
- Automated workflows that trigger on record changes, schedules, or webhooks. When an order flips to “Paid,” send the confirmation email. When a lead arrives, alert the right person.
- Web forms you can embed on your site that write directly into your tables. No more copy-pasting from inbox to sheet.
- Integrations with SMTP email, OpenAI/GPT, and any REST API when you want summaries, categorization, routing, or enrichment.
- Import/export with Excel for the moments when a spreadsheet is still the fastest knife in the drawer.
What “upgrade” looks like in practice
Keep MySQL as the ledger.
Use InfoLobby as the workbench.
Let spreadsheets go back to being what they are best at: temporary, personal, disposable. Like a napkin with math on it. Useful. Not sacred.
When v3-final-FINAL.xlsx becomes mission-critical, you do not need another naming convention. You need a system that does not rely on naming conventions to prevent disaster.