Excel is often the right tool, until it isn't, and most businesses don't notice the shift until it's already expensive. This 25-point checklist scores your reporting system across five areas: data quality, time and efficiency, collaboration, scalability, and security.
The Warning Signs
The checklist calls out specific, recognizable failure patterns: the "bus factor" (only one person understands how the reports work), the Sunday night scramble to prep Monday's numbers, decisions made on outdated data because the wrong file version got opened. If more than a couple of these sound familiar, that's the signal.
What Your Score Means
Scoring under 5 means your system is healthy. Scoring 20 or higher means Excel has become a business liability, with an estimated $37,500 to $100,000 a year in lost productivity from manual workarounds alone.
About this post
Written by
Justin Szilard
Published
July 15, 2026