No. The aim is to stop Excel being the place where the numbers are made, not to stop people using it. Workbooks that only reshape exports are retired, because the warehouse does that work every night. Workbooks that hold something no system holds, such as the budget or a pricing table, are kept as inputs with an owner and loaded on a schedule. Analysis people do on top carries on, starting from figures everyone has agreed.
How a chain of workbooks becomes the riskiest part of the month
It usually starts sensibly. Someone exports from the accounting system, tidies the columns and adds a pivot table. Next month a second export joins it, then a lookup to a product list, then a link to last year's file. Within a few years the monthly pack is a chain of workbooks that only one person can run.
Each step is reasonable on its own. Together they create three problems. The figures depend on exports taken at slightly different times. The logic sits in formulas that nobody else has read. And the chain stops when its owner is away.
Size is rarely the issue. A worksheet can hold up to 1,048,576 rows, according to Microsoft's published limits, which is more than most monthly packs ever need. The trouble is what the workbooks are being asked to do, not how much they hold.
Retire, keep or leave alone: how each workbook is decided
In the audit, every workbook that feeds the reporting gets one of these three answers, agreed with the person who owns it.
Retire it
It only reshapes exports from systems: copying, matching, totalling. The warehouse does the same work every night from the systems themselves, so the workbook is no longer needed for reporting.
Keep it as an input
It holds something no system holds: the budget, sales targets, a pricing table, a mapping of account codes to report lines. It stays in Excel, gets a named owner, and loads on a schedule.
Leave it alone
It is analysis on top of the figures: a scenario, a one-off model, a working file. It carries on as before, and starts from the agreed figures instead of a fresh export.
How a kept workbook is read, and what happens when it changes
Each night the warehouse reads a copy of the saved workbook from SharePoint or OneDrive, table by table, and loads it beside the systems it relates to. The budget sits next to the ledger, the targets next to the CRM, the account mapping next to every report that uses it.
If a table has been renamed, a column moved or a date typed as text, the load does not guess. It stops for that file, keeps the last good version in the warehouse and tells the owner what it found, so that old figures are not passed off as new ones.
SharePoint and OneDrive keep a version history of each file, by default up to five hundred major versions in Microsoft's settings for organisations. That history is useful for working out who changed what. The warehouse keeps its own record as well, of what each load contained, so last month's budget figures can be shown as they stood last month.
A workbook as the engine, or a workbook as an input
The same file can play either role. The difference is where the calculation happens and who can check it.
| Workbook as the reporting engine | Workbook as an input to the warehouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the figures are assembled | In formulas inside the file | In the warehouse, from the systems |
| What the workbook holds | Exports, lookups and totals | Only what no system holds |
| When it runs | When someone opens it | Every night, on a schedule |
| If its owner is away | The pack waits | The last good version is used, and flagged |
| Who can check the logic | Whoever can read the formulas | Anyone who reads the written definitions |
A trading company whose pack lives in seven workbooks
A Maltese trading company builds its monthly management pack from seven linked workbooks: sales and stock exports, a customer mapping, the budget, a commission sheet, and a summary that pulls them together.
- The finance lead spends the first days of each month refreshing exports and repairing broken links.
- Commission is worked out in a sheet that disagrees with the sales export twice a year.
- When the finance lead is on leave, the pack is late.
- Four workbooks are retired: their exports and lookups are rebuilt in the warehouse from the systems.
- The budget, the customer mapping and the commission rates stay in Excel as owned inputs, loaded nightly.
- The summary is replaced by a dashboard, and the finance lead still opens Excel for the analysis the board asks for.
Excel did not go away. It stopped being the place where the month was assembled.
What makes a workbook safe to load every night
One Excel table per dataset
Data held as an Excel table, made with Format as Table, so it has a name and a clear edge. Microsoft's structured references then refer to columns by name rather than by cell address.
One header row, one row per record
No merged cells, no subtotal rows in the middle and no notes typed under the data.
Saved in the current format, in a shared place
An .xlsx file in SharePoint or OneDrive for work or school. Microsoft's interface for other software reads only that format there; older .xls files need saving in the new format first.
Dates and amounts held as values
Dates as dates and amounts as numbers, never as text with a currency sign typed in.
A named owner
One person who decides when a column changes and who is told when a load cannot read the file.
What we do not do
- We do not sell, license, implement or support Excel or Microsoft 365.
- We do not run Excel training, write macros or rebuild workbooks as more complicated workbooks.
- We do not ban spreadsheets. Analysis in Excel carries on; it starts from figures everyone has agreed.
- Nothing is copied into an account of ours: the warehouse and every loaded workbook stay under yours.
How it works
- A strategy callThirty minutes with Glen, free, with no pitch deck. Bring the systems you run and the question none of them answers on its own. You leave knowing whether joining them is worth doing, and where to start.
- The data auditAbout three hours with your team, mapping where each figure comes from, which system holds it and which steps are done by hand. The audit confirms how each system can be read, and it ends with a quote.
- The buildThree to four weeks from an accepted quote to a live dashboard. Implementation is the first month. Your team agrees the definitions with us; we do the building.
- The fractional teamAn ongoing senior team keeps the loads running, follows changes made to your systems and connects the next source when the business needs it.
Glen Sultana founded 110 Analytics after a career built where the numbers move daily. Our people have run analytics for tier-one companies, S&P 500 firms and high-growth technology businesses. Glen is the person on the first call, and he runs every data audit himself.
- Built in your environment, under your account
- No lock-in: if we part company, it keeps running and stays yours
- Based in Malta
Straight answers
Do you replace Excel?
No, and nobody has to stop using it. Workbooks that only reshape exports are retired, because the warehouse does that work. Workbooks that hold something no system holds stay, with an owner. Analysis in Excel carries on.
Can you read our older .xls files?
They need saving in the current .xlsx format first. Microsoft's interface for other software reads workbooks only in that format, and only from SharePoint or OneDrive for work or school. The audit lists which files need it.
What if someone changes the layout of a kept workbook?
The next load stops for that file, keeps the last good version, and tells the owner what changed. Nothing is guessed, and the reports show which date the figures come from.
Our workbooks are very large. Is that a problem?
Rarely. Microsoft's limit is just over a million rows per worksheet, and a warehouse holds far more than that. Large workbooks are often the first to be retired, because they usually hold exports the warehouse can take straight from the system.
Do you need access to all our files?
No. Your administrator grants read access only to the SharePoint site that holds the workbooks the reports use, using Microsoft's Sites.Selected permission, and can withdraw it at any time.
How do you connect to Excel?
By reading the saved file from SharePoint or OneDrive on a schedule, table by table. The audit confirms which workbooks are loaded, which are retired and who owns each one. Kept somewhere else, such as a file server or Google Drive? The audit sets out the route for those too.
Terms on this page
- Excel table
- A range turned into a named table with Format as Table. It has headers, a name and a clear edge, which is what a scheduled load needs.
- Structured reference
- A formula that refers to a table and its column names rather than to cell addresses.
- Input workbook
- A spreadsheet kept on purpose because it holds something no system holds, loaded on a schedule with a named owner.
- Last good load
- The most recent version of a file the warehouse could read in full, kept in use until a newer version can be read.
Where the product facts come from
Every product fact on this page comes from the vendor's own documentation, read on 8 October 2026. Vendors change their products, so the audit checks the version you run.
- Microsoft Support: Excel specifications and limits
- Microsoft Support: overview of Excel tables
- Microsoft Support: using structured references with Excel tables
- Microsoft Learn: working with Excel in Microsoft Graph
- Microsoft Learn: default version history limits for SharePoint and OneDrive
- Microsoft Learn: selected permissions overview (Sites.Selected)