Whether SMBs, SMEs, or enterprises, almost every business uses spreadsheets in their day-to-day operations for better workflows. Nowadays, spreadsheets are not just about an excel file on your computer. They have become a way to collaborate with the team to boost productivity and efficiency.
Effective remote workspaces are the need of the hour today, and it starts with making every process, including creating and editing spreadsheets online. Employees want to access their documents anytime, anywhere, and on any device they want. This is possible only if the online spreadsheets are available so that anyone who has access to that file can edit it on the go.
The spreadsheets were introduced to help with the finances of a company, but it does more than just tracking your budget and expenses. They play a vital role in every department and can perform tasks that save time, improve workflows and boost efficiency.
If you are using cloud-based or online excel, it can act like a centralized place for your team to collaborate on projects and track progress. You can also use conditional formatting and data validation lists to know who is working on which tasks and their current status.
Here are some of the best excel alternatives for your business so that your team can work and collaborate better.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet is an online excel alternative that allows you to project data effectively. Its user interface is relatively easy to understand and allows your remote teams to create reports and manage projects in a single place. It also offers a form feature that can be shared with your clients, team, and others. The data is automatically stored in the excel sheet in the given format.
Smartsheet is a highly scalable, no-code cloud-based platform.
The platform unifies collaboration, workflows, and content management on one flexible, secure platform. Over 90% of Fortune 100 companies use the platform, and 80% use it to align with corporate goals. Give people the power to automate workflows and design solutions that work based on their needs with the security and oversight IT demands.
Zoho Sheet
Zoho Sheet is intelligent online spreadsheet software that offers over 350 inbuilt functions with an option to create custom functions with minimum or no coding. You can create, edit and share spreadsheets with your team.
Track your progress with checklists, create validations for data entry, and automate your everyday tasks. Publish specific ranges of your spreadsheet online or the entire file, and embed your files into your blog post. You can even download your spreadsheets as other file types such as .pdf or .html.
Google Sheets
Google Sheets interface is quite similar to excel and is a perfect excel alternative. It offers both a free version for personal use and a paid version for business purposes. As part of Google Workspace, you can integrate Google Sheets with other applications such as Google Analytics, Google Forms, and many other third-party add ons.
It is effortless to import or export data from Google Sheets and offers users web-based “anywhere” access.
Google Sheets makes your data stand out with impressive graphs and charts. The built-in formulas and pivot tables, and conditional formatting options help save time and streamline routine tasks with spreadsheets. It is also possible to review revision history to view older versions of the same spreadsheet, sorted according to dates and when you made the change.
Utilize the Explore panel to get an overview of your data, including informative summaries and various pre-populated charts that you can select from.
Airtable
Airtable offers more than spreadsheets.
You can use as a calendar, project tracker, form, sales CRM or product planner to visualize data in various ways and build apps. It is highly customizable and can be integrated with many third-party applications. It has easy to use interface.
You can create relationships between data sets within each “base” or table, pivot tables and graphs, and use formulas along with many project management and collaboration features.
Both free and paid versions are available to help you work smarter and improve your productivity. Over 200,000 organizations have built applications on Airtable to modernize their workflows and deliver better business outcomes.
Microsoft 365
Who doesn’t know about Microsoft Excel?
Do you know, Microsoft offers Excel as an online version under Microsoft 365. You can use Excel as a desktop or a web-based application.
Excel offers a maximum cell count of 17,179.869,184 and makes it easier to handle large datasets better than any other program. Functions such as INDEX-MATCH can help you separate data from a vast range of data. Powerful filters on the top of every column help show information in a manner compatible with your needs.
Its interface comes with a custom Quick Access toolbar for pinning essential functions you’ll need to use frequently. The ability to run native apps implies that calculations are performed on your personal computer instead of transmitted to a server before being sent. This provides better performance when compared with web-only applications such as Google Sheets.
However, in contrast to Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel’s collaborative features are only available to those with the Office365 membership. This will allow you to work with other Excel users in real-time and use document versioning and rollback changes as you need to.
Ethercalc
Do you need something very basic?
EtherCalc might be the right choice for you. Like Google Sheets, EtherCalc is an online-based, free software. But, it doesn’t require an account for use.
The website generates a unique URL for each sheet that you can cut, copy, or send to others.
The UI is somewhat outdated and doesn’t have many options. However, its easy-to-use interface and fast sharing capabilities make it among the popular free online spreadsheet software.
Conclusion
There are a few aspects to consider when choosing an online spreadsheet software for your business. The free software is sufficient for basic usage, but If you’re seeking more advanced features, then it might be worth considering a premium one.
Cloud-based software usually lets you collaborate in real-time with comments, version history, and commenting and ensures that no one’s information will ever be lost or overwritten.