From Excel to a system, step by step: a plan for the first week

In an earlier post we listed the signs that a business has outgrown its spreadsheets. This one is about how to move. Done in the right order, it takes about a week, and most of the stock list fills in as you work.

Step 1: tidy up the client list

Open your Excel file and keep the columns you need: name, phone, e-mail, and an address if you have one. Save it as CSV. ReactDesk’s Settings have an import that matches columns by their names, so a few minutes later your clients are in the system. Latvian companies can also be added from the Enterprise Register by typing part of their name.

Step 2: enter the stock, but not all of it

Do not try to enter 800 items on the first day. Enter the 50 you use or sell most often and add the others the first time you need them. After a month the list is complete, and nobody spent a night typing. If your old list is already in a spreadsheet, the same import loads stock as well.

Step 3: new jobs go only into the system

From the first day, every new job goes into the system. Jobs already in progress are finished on paper. A week later the paper pile is gone.

Step 4: add the team

Give each person their own login and a role. The role decides what they can see and change, for example jobs but not the financial reports. Nobody needs to share one password any more.

Step 5: after a month, open the reports

With a month of data in the system, the reports become useful: which jobs earn the most, where jobs wait longest and which stock does not sell.

If you are moving from another system rather than from Excel, send us an export from it and we load your clients, stock and history for you, free of charge. You also get 31 days of Premium. Write to us in the chat.