Spreadsheets – both manual and digital – have been the go-to tool for almost every business for years. Many companies still depend on spreadsheets for their daily operations. But this wonder-tool, though helpful, has some hard-to-ignore disadvantages that can have an adverse effect on operations.
After carefully examining how spreadsheets work in different business environments, and having used them ourselves, we realised that they are vulnerable to fraud, susceptible to trivial human errors, and difficult to troubleshoot or test.
Further exploration of Excel in the Tenement Management space brings to light a host of other issues. Firstly, working with Excel for Tenement Management requires a considerable amount of timely manual input, and lacks smart features like audit tracking and automatic updates. Excel worksheets often haven’t been updated for years resulting in clunky user interfaces as compared to purpose-built solutions. It is also obstructive to regulatory compliance and poses a huge inconvenience to Tenement Managers. Since spreadsheets are not traditionally designed for collaborative work, they are sometimes hard to consolidate, incapable of supporting quick decision-making and are therefore unfit for agile business practices and business continuity. They also often require an intimate understanding or working knowledge to be able to comprehensively understand what is what!
What keeps you awake at night?
We observed that our customers are sick of the worry and anxiety associated with missing important dates and legislative requirements regarding their tenements.
The cost of missing a critical renewal date could impose a considerable financial penalty on a company. On the other hand, being able to keep everything up to date and not miss any important deadlines, would probably be a KPI that tenement officers are being assessed by.
We took it upon ourselves to find out more, and here’s what we learned. It’s not uncommon for Excel users to run parallel spreadsheets in order to double-check accuracy But in reality, how well would this work? It does seem tedious and time-consuming.
Having one source of truth that accurately links the various process stages and that enables you to manage the tenement process from ‘cradle to grave’ enables customers to work with just one platform, and more importantly – to trust this platform.
That’s where PX4 works its magic! Alerts are easy to see on the dashboard, email alerts can be set up to remind you, critical dates can be set with prior alerts and an authority health check is completed each and every night (for all authorities!) to ensure that actions are being created accurately and appropriately.
The need for meaningful reports to enable efficient business management
Planning, forecasting, budgeting, and reporting are all collaborative activities. In other words; plans, forecasts, budgets, and reports typically require information from different individuals belonging to different corporate departments. In addition, the final documents are a result of multiple exchanges of data, ideas, and files.
Being able to generate useful reports easily and quickly when asked, or at the end of the month to provide to your management or clients can be overwhelming. Consultancies usually provide their mining clients with a monthly report summarising key information, actions done and outstanding, and also financial summaries. In such cases, spreadsheets are susceptible to duplicate and even erroneous data. These ‘quick queries’ from clients or management for a specific piece of information can often end up consuming huge chunks of a tenement manager’s time.
Another finding was that most users aren’t IT experts. So having access to PX4 gives them a suite of standard reports that can be quickly accessed and generated on-demand, saving them a lot of time and stress.
PX4’ customers also benefit from having access to a suite of meaningful reports and the ability to export data into Excel when required.
Manual data inputs
One of our customers recently said, “I have to do a lot of manual data inputting. It’s not only time-consuming but it also increases the chances data entry mistakes will be made.”
Spreadsheets are extremely susceptible to trivial human errors. Missed negative signs and misaligned rows may sound harmless. An incorrectly entered number or formula can drastically change outcomes. But these errors tend to damage confidence and cause a considerable loss of opportunity amounting to millions of dollars. Using databases that have had little or no product development over the years hinders agility and productivity.
Our findings were that the market would benefit from having a platform that was smart and that linked the various process layers in a way that reduced the need for a user to add in additional information. A tool like PX4 also reduces the chance of human error. The feedback from a number of our customers was that after they switched, they found a marked increase in their productivity, and in their ability to produce complex reports in seconds.
If you’re someone who is still entirely dependent on spreadsheets, we’re here to help you transition to a better process. As your organisation grows, you will continue to reap the benefits of our ever-evolving product. Not ready to give up your commitment to spreadsheets yet? Request a demonstration of PX4 today, and see for yourself the tenement management solution of the future!
