Tuesday 5th August, 2014

According to research by Intuit QuickBooks, UK small businesses are stuck in a love/hate affair with spreadsheets. The majority of business owners questioned find spreadsheets annoying, yet more than half fail to resist using them to manage their business’ finances.

The research, conducted among 200 UK small businesses by Opinion Matters, suggests over-reliance on inefficient spreadsheets is distracting SME owners from actually running and growing their business.

Half the respondents admit they waste anywhere between 30 minutes to as much as six hours a week dealing with spreadsheet issues such as understanding formulas, getting the numbers to add up and keeping version control; this equates to an average of one week a year.

Unsurprisingly, just twenty three per cent admit to really enjoying the financial management side of the business, but more concerning is that over 50 per cent are frustrated that they do not have enough time for the important things, like spending time with the family and growing their business. However, despite poor financial management being one of the common reasons businesses fail, a worrying 50 per cent admit to putting off doing the books.

Rich Preece, VP and MD of Intuit UK commented: "No-one starts their own business because they want to spend more time doing the books. Yet many seem to be stuck in a cycle of spending hours each month getting annoyed and frustrated because they’re using spreadsheets to manage their finances. It doesn’t have to be this way. Financial management should be quick and easy; it should be more about gaining insights and adding value to identify new opportunities. It shouldn’t be a hassle."

"When I first started out, spreadsheets seemed like the obvious way to keep track of my income and expenses. I also used Word to create the invoices I sent out to clients. But as my work grew, it made sense to move to accounting software. Now I can generate invoices faster, and I don’t have to re-enter all the details into a separate spreadsheet to record my income." said John McGarvey, Copywriter and Content Strategist, John McGarvey Ltd.