Quick answer: why move away from spreadsheets?
Spreadsheets are brilliant for thinking and ad-hoc analysis. They are a poor operating system for events. Version drift, manual re-keying and hidden errors slow teams down, leak margin and make governance hard. Modern event software centralises proposals, budgets, registration, comms and reporting so you move faster, protect profit and prove impact.
The problem with spreadsheet-led event management.
- Version chaos. “final_v7_really_final.xlsx” is never final. One change in sales doesn’t reach ops or finance.
- Manual work. Copying attendee data between sheets and tools eats hours and adds multiplies mistakes.
- Leaky margin. Fees, commission and last-minute changes are easy to miss when pricing logic lives in cells no one audits.
- Slow decisions. Capacity, budget and registration are scattered, so teams act on stale data.
- Weak governance. GDPR requests, approval history and sustainability reporting turn into a scavenger hunt.
Bottom line: spreadsheets create friction where you need flow.
The outcome you want (and how to measure it).
- Faster sales cycles. Time to first proposal under one hour, time to sign down by 20–40 percent.
- Live commercial control. Margin, fees and commissions visible and accurate on every active project.
- Credible reporting. Client-ready summaries for performance and co₂ per attendee when captured.
- Hours back. A measurable drop in manual tasks across sales, ops and finance.
Set these as success metrics before you change anything.
The 7-step plan to ditch spreadsheets for good.
1) Map your current workflow and pain points.
List each step from enquiry to debrief. Mark every spreadsheet and handoff. Highlight where data is duplicated, approvals stall or errors appear. This is your baseline and business case.
2) Standardise the 80 percent.
Turn your best work into reusable building blocks:
- Proposal templates with products, price rules and option deadlines.
- Registration form templates with categories and capacity.
- Email templates for confirmation, reminders and final logistics.
- Budget frameworks with revenue, costs, fees, commission and live margin.
- Keep 20 percent flexible for creative needs.
3) Choose software that replaces - not adds to - your sheets.
Evaluate platforms on outcomes, not feature lists:
- Proposals to debrief in one workflow.
- Live margin tracking with fees and commission.
- Permissions, audit trails and retention controls.
- Fields to capture travel and F&B for co₂ reports.
- Integrations with CRM and finance to remove double entries.
Script a 30-minute live demo using a real scenario. Score vendors on evidence, not promises.
4) Migrate the minimum viable data.
Import only what you need to run upcoming events: contacts, product catalogue, key price lists, current attendee records. Archive old sheets in read-only form for reference. Less clutter, faster adoption.
5) Run a two-week pilot on a real event.
Pick a typical project. Deliver it end-to-end in the new workflow. Measure time to proposal, registration completion and margin accuracy. Hold a short retrospective and improve the templates, not just the tactics.
6) Train by doing (not by decks).
Give each role a short checklist:
- Sales builds one proposal from a template, sends, tracks acceptance.
- Ops publishes a form, sets capacity and automates comms.
- Finance verifies invoices and fee logic from the same project record.
- Account manager produces a client-ready performance and co₂ summary.
Celebrate the first win. Adoption follows momentum.
7) Retire the spreadsheets (with guardrails).
Lock legacy sheets to read-only. Route all new projects through the platform. Set a monthly governance review to prune fields, refine templates and keep reports aligned to your metrics.
Common objections from your team (and how to overcome them).
“Our events are too bespoke.”
Standardise the 80 percent (structure, price rules, comms). Keep 20 percent flexible in blocks. Bespoke doesn’t mean rebuilding every time.
“We’ll lose visibility if everything moves off spreadsheets.”
No, you gain visibility. Live dashboards replace hidden formulas. Permissions keep sensitive data controlled.
“We don’t have time to switch.”
You don’t have time not to. A two-week pilot on one event typically repays the effort in hours saved and errors avoided.
“Finance needs their own sheets.”
Connect finance to the same source of truth and export clean, structured data; fewer reconciliation headaches, faster month-end.
Frequently asked questions.
What’s the fastest way to replace event spreadsheets?
Standardise templates, pick one platform that covers proposals to reporting, and pilot on a real event within two weeks.
How do I stop margin leakage without spreadsheets?
Use live margin tracking with fees and commission in your event software; price changes and approvals are logged automatically.
How do I handle group bookings without a spreadsheet?
Let a primary booker add guests, assign categories and pay once; capture only essential per-guest fields.
How do I do sustainability reporting without manual sums?
Collect travel and accommodation details at registration and generate a co₂ summary per attendee and per event. It's easy if you have the right software.
Where Qondor fits.
If you’re ready to leave spreadsheets behind for good, Qondor brings proposals, budgets, registration, payments, communications and reporting into one platform so your team works smarter.
You get live commercial control, higher form completion and client-ready reporting, including co₂ summaries when you capture travel, F&B and accommodation.
Fewer handoffs, cleaner data and measurable time saved mean more efficient, profitable and sustainable meetings & events.