Managing your fleet in Excel: limits and alternatives
Many fleets start in a notebook, then in Excel. It is a good start — until the day the file is no longer enough. Here is how to recognise that day, and how to switch without losing your history.
What Excel does well
It is familiar, flexible, and already on the computer. For one or two vehicles followed by a single person, a well-kept spreadsheet is often enough.
Its limits for a fleet
- A single true version: as soon as the file travels by email or WhatsApp, several copies drift apart;
- fragile formulas: an inserted row or an overwritten cell distorts the totals without warning;
- history rewritten: changing a commission rate often recalculates past months;
- no entry from the road: the driver sends their revenue by message, and someone types it in again;
- no alerts: an oil change or an insurance policy coming due warns nobody;
- no access rights: whoever opens the file sees everything and can change everything;
- backups depend on you: one lost computer, and the history goes with it.
When to switch
When several people enter data, when you have several drivers, or when you discover a due date after the fact. At that point, the time spent keeping the file costs more than a tool.
Switch without starting from scratch
- MOUTOUKA imports your revenue and expenses from Excel, using a template file to download;
- the administrator can at any time export all the data to Excel, and restore from such a file;
- the data is also backed up every night.
Each person has their role — administrator, manager, reader, driver — and the driver enters data from their phone, even without network. With one vehicle and one user, MOUTOUKA is free; beyond that, see the pricing.