Compare
Construction ERP or spreadsheets: which should a contractor use?
Spreadsheets are enough for one or two sites run by one person. They stop working when several sites report separately, because nothing links the store, the attendance sheet and the bills, and nothing stops a figure being changed afterwards.
Side by side
| Spreadsheets | ERP Infra | |
|---|---|---|
| Who enters the data | Someone in the office retypes what the site sends by phone and message. | The person closest to the work enters it once, at site, on a phone. |
| Changing a past entry | Any cell can be changed by anyone, with no trace. | Records lock on submit. Every change is logged with who and when. |
| Material used against work done | Compared monthly, if at all, in a separate sheet. | Worked out every day per site; excess above allowed wastage is flagged. |
| Supplier bills | Checked from memory against the order and the receipt. | Matched automatically to the order and the receipt; mismatches are held. |
| Cost per site | Built after the bills arrive, weeks later. | Costed from the day’s site entries, the same evening. |
| Several sites | One file per site, each in its own format. | One record across every project and site, with access by role. |
When the alternative is enough
If you run a single site, buy from a handful of suppliers and personally see every delivery and every bill, a well-kept spreadsheet is enough and an ERP would be overhead.
Questions people ask
- When should a construction company move from Excel to an ERP?
- When you run more sites than you can visit in a day, when month-end takes more than a few days to close, or when you cannot say what a site cost this week without phoning someone.
- Can we keep using spreadsheets alongside ERP Infra?
- Yes. The pilot runs alongside your existing register and sheets for a month, so you can compare the two before switching.
Let’s put every site on one screen.
Tell us how many projects and sites you run. We will walk you through the system on a call and suggest where a pilot would pay back first.
Book a free demo on WhatsApp