One of Excel’s biggest benefits is it’s flexibility. With a creative enough mindset, you can achieve almost any goal you wish. However, just because it is technically possible, doesn’t mean it will be realistic. Whether it is due to the learning curve, setting it up, or maintenance, some vital business requirements cause more time and effort to set up in Excel than they’re worth. In those cases, it can be beneficial to have help from a program such as Vena to bypass these difficulties. One main benefit of Vena is that it is directly incorporated into excel. So you do not lose any of the excel functionalities that you are used to, but you can add on new features which help solve some pitfalls that companies typically experience when using solely Excel. Below, we’ll look at 7 common problems in excel which Vena can solve.
1. Audit Trail
One common issue is that there is no easy way of tracking changes in excel. When working on a personal file, this is no big issue, but once multiple people get involved, it can be difficult to know what was changed, when it was changed, and by who. While excel online does have the ability to show changes, due to sorting and adjusting of sheet layouts, it is not always clear if the cell you are looking at refers to the same data.
2. Security
Naturally, security is a major concern for many businesses. Whether it’s not wanting people to see certain confidential information, or just limit what can be edited, it is important to set restrictions within your files. While excel does have built in sheet and workbook protections, these can be tedious to set up, especially in large workbooks, and these passwords can be leaked using some softwares. Not to mention, if the password gets forgotten, or the person who set up the workbook leaves, you can find yourself in a difficult situation.
3. Collaborating on a file
Sharing excel files can be another hassle for large businesses. It is probably easy to recognize the struggle of emailing excel files around without knowing who changed what. When multiple versions of a file are in circulation, it becomes difficult to know which one is the most up to date, which can lead to confusion and errors in your decision making. Large spreadsheets can also cause delays in delivery or even fail to send. For organizations that depend on reliable data and efficient teamwork, exploring alternatives to email-based file sharing can provide greater control, security, and productivity.
4. Data Quality
Maintaining high data quality within Excel can be a constant challenge. While data quality seems like something excel would help with, manual entry errors, inconsistent formatting, and broken formulas often go unnoticed until they cause bigger problems. Different users may apply their own conventions with varying date formats or naming structures, making it harder to align and analyze information reliably. Over time, these small inconsistencies add up, creating reports that don’t fully reflect reality. As a business that relies on accurate insights to make decisions, these risks highlight the limitations of Excel as a single source of truth and point to the need for more robust, controlled solutions.
5. Lack of Process/Workflow
Excel offers flexibility, but that freedom often comes at the cost of structure. Unlike dedicated workflow or projectmanagement tools, spreadsheets don’t provide built-in processes to guide how data should be collected, approved, or shared. This lack of standardized workflow can lead to ad hoc practices: teams relying on informal rules or personal habits to keep things moving. As a result, important steps may be skipped, accountability becomes blurred, and collaboration slows down. For organizations aiming to scale efficiently and maintain consistency, the absence of clear process in Excel can quickly become a bottleneck.
6. Amount of Data
Excel is limited to 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns. With many larger businesses, this is simply not enough to capture entire datasets, especially in situations where transactional data may be needed for detail. Even before reaching the limits, excel can be extremely slow, causing frustration and wasting time.
7. Single Source of truth
Another issue commonly faced by companies with excel is keeping all their data up to date as 1 source of truth. Especially when it comes to multiple people inputting data into different workbooks, it is very easy to imagine a scenario where someone is working with out of date data, causing incorrect conclusions. For example, in a forecast cycle, if the sales and finance team use different assumptions in their forecasts, then they will need to decide which assumption is “correct”, which takes uptime and can lead to incorrect decisions.
Conclusion
Excel will always have its place, but if your organization is starting to feel the strain of its limitations, it may be time to explore a smarter approach. Vena combines everything you already know and love about Excel with the structure, control, and scalability businesses need to move forward with confidence. If you’d like to see how these added benefits could work for your team, reach out to us - we’d be happy to show you what’s possible with Vena.
