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Posted: Tue 10th Nov 2026
5 min read
Reviewed by Amanda Peters, content manager
At first, the extra spreadsheet seems harmless. Then somebody makes a second version, customer details end up in three places and pulling together the monthly figures takes half a day.
These are some of the signs your business has outgrown its systems. They rarely arrive with a dramatic breakdown. More often, the work gets a little harder each month.
That doesn't automatically mean you need new software. You might need a clearer handover, a tidier customer list or one change to an otherwise useful system. The trick is finding out which.
Watch for work that grows faster than the business.
A café adds a second site, but its stock figures still arrive as photographs of handwritten sheets. A trades firm wins more jobs, yet the owner has to ask three people where each one stands. An online retailer copies order details from one screen into another because the two systems don't talk to each other.
Other clues are less visible. Reports arrive late. Staff keep their own records because they don't trust the official ones. A routine task stops when one particular colleague goes on holiday.
One awkward task isn't proof that everything needs replacing. Repeated delays, conflicting information and mistakes that customers notice are worth investigating.
Ask people to show you how they actually complete a job, rather than how the process is supposed to work. Watch one customer enquiry travel through to payment.
Where does somebody retype information? Which spreadsheet exists purely to check another spreadsheet? Who gets chased for approval?
Don't start by telling staff to stop doing these things. Their workarounds may be keeping the business afloat. A second list often exists because the first one is missing something important.
For a week, write down each workaround, why it happens and what it costs. Keep this exercise informal: a notebook or shared sheet will do.
People are more likely to show you the awkward bits if they know you are trying to fix the job, not find somebody to blame.
An extra 10 minutes per order matters when there are 50 orders. A confusing handover that causes one missed delivery may matter more. Ask staff which task they would fix first, and listen to the reasons.
Sometimes the problem sits between people, not inside a program. A quote waits in somebody's inbox because nobody owns the next step.
The accounts system has accurate figures, but each department records a sale differently. Buying an expensive new platform won't settle who approves a refund.
Before spending anything, agree who records the information, where the current version lives and who takes over when its usual owner is absent.
Write the handover in ordinary language. Test it with someone who wasn't involved in designing it. If they still have to ask you where a customer file lives, the process is not ready.
If the process works once people follow it, you may have saved yourself a purchase.
Accountant Della Hudson described a similar decision in her account of growing Hudson Accountants, published by ICAEW. She started with spreadsheets and the HMRC website, then grew the practice from a one-person operation to a team of eight.
Rather than buying a complete new set-up at once, she added software as she could afford it and checked which tasks actually became quicker.
Some tools didn't offer enough benefit for a firm of that size, so she left them out. That last decision is easily overlooked: saying no to an upgrade can be just as sensible as saying yes.
Keep it if it does the job reliably, staff understand it, and any problems are minor. An old spreadsheet that tracks a handful of straightforward items may be perfectly adequate.
Improve it if the basic tool is sound, but information gets duplicated, permissions are unclear, or nobody has documented the steps. Fix the customer records or the approval rule before you shop around.
Replace it when recurring errors, missing features or lack of support are genuinely holding up work, and smaller fixes won't solve the problem. Check what information must move across and whether another system will still need to use it.
Get the people who use a tool to test those options. A manager's tidy-looking dashboard is little comfort if the person taking orders has to do twice the typing.
Choose the hold-up that costs the most in time, mistakes or lost business, not necessarily the one everybody complains about most loudly. If staff re-enter 10 minutes of information on 30 orders each week, that's five hours you can count. Compare that with the cost of fixing it.
Allow for the less obvious bill: training, correcting old records, moving information and the slower first few weeks.
A new system may look cheap until you include the hours needed to get it working properly. Also ask whether it creates a second bill: one system to buy, another to maintain because the first cannot do everything.
Pick one job you can improve and measure. Record how long it takes now. Make the change. Check again a month later. You need evidence that the problem has improved, not just a new subscription.
Avoid changing everything on a Monday morning. Try the new way with one person or one team first.
Keep the old records available while you check that customer details, orders and totals agree. Make sure somebody knows how to put things right if the trial goes badly. Agree in advance what would make you stop the trial, and give staff time to learn the new steps without squeezing training into their lunch break.
The same principle applies outside office software. If you run your own premises, upgrading older building controls in stages may allow useful equipment to stay in service while troublesome parts are modernised. Whatever the system, ask what can keep working while you make the change.
Before moving important records, check backups and access to accounts. The National Cyber Security Centre's guide for small organisations has straightforward advice on both.
Does it still do the job reliably? If yes, consider keeping it.
Are people copying information or maintaining side lists? Find out why, then improve the process.
Can another colleague use it without help? If not, document or train first.
Are errors or delays recurring despite fixes? Consider replacing the weak part.
Can we test a change without stopping work? Plan a small trial before a full switch.
Start with the workaround that's costing you the most. You may discover you need less new technology than you thought.
