Moving off a spreadsheet, for a one-person trade

A spreadsheet is the most capable tool on this list and the one people are most reluctant to leave, usually because they built it themselves and it fits exactly how they work. This page is about the three jobs it genuinely cannot do rather than the ones it can, who should keep theirs, and what the alternatives cost. We make one of them, so read it knowing that.

How it usually goes

It started as one tab called Jobs. There are seven now. One of them is called Jobs2 and you are not sure which is current. The quote goes out as a PDF you exported and tidied by hand, or as an .xlsx that opened sideways on the customer's phone, and when the money does not arrive there is a column called Paid? that only tells you the truth if you remember to fill it in.

What a spreadsheet cannot do

Not a list of its faults. A list of the three jobs it was never built for, which is a different thing and the only part worth paying to fix.

• 1.It cannot send anything. A spreadsheet has no idea whether the customer opened the quote, accepted it, or has had it sitting unread for nine days, so the follow-up runs on memory.
• 2.It cannot turn a quote into an invoice. The numbers exist, but somebody retypes them, and that somebody is you, at night.
• 3.It has no opinion about VAT or CIS. The formulas do what you told them in the month you wrote them, and they keep doing it after a rate changes.

What the admin actually costs a business of one

Every method on this site, ours included, is trying to buy back the same thing. It is worth knowing what it is worth before you spend anything on it, so here is our own analysis of the public figures, with the working published.

The honest limit on that: it describes businesses affected by late payment, not everyone, and a spreadsheet is not what caused it. The narrower claim is the one that matters here. None of the methods on this site chases anybody on its own, so whatever that time is worth, you are paying all of it.

You are also not unusual. Comparing the Department for Business and Trade's business population estimate against the ONS register of VAT and PAYE registered firms puts roughly 500,000 UK construction businesses, 57% of the sector, below both thresholds with no payroll. Almost every one of them is one person running the whole thing off a book, a phone or a spreadsheet.

Full working, primary sources and the limitations → Last checked 31 July 2026. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.

The options, with prices

Including doing nothing, which is a real option and the right one for some of the people reading this.

If you do move, do these first

• 1.Keep the sheet, do not delete it. It is your record for the years it covers, and HMRC can ask you to produce records for six years. Export a copy to PDF or CSV and put it somewhere that is not one laptop.
• 2.Carry the invoice numbers across. Start the new system at the next number in your sequence, not back at 1. A restart or a gap in the run is the first thing an enquiry picks at.
• 3.Move the client list first, jobs second. Names, addresses, phone numbers and emails are the part that hurts to retype and the part you need on day one. Open jobs can finish in the sheet.

Questions people ask

What is the best alternative to a spreadsheet for tracking jobs?

It depends what the spreadsheet is failing at. If it is the sending, quotes and invoices going out and being chased, a job tool priced for one person is the direct answer. If it is the sums, a spreadsheet is better at sums than most software and the fix is a calculator rather than a migration. If it is that the file lives on one laptop, the fix might just be moving it to Google Sheets. Be specific about the failure before you pay for anything.

Is there a free alternative to using Excel for job tracking?

Several, each with a catch. Zoho Invoice is free for up to 500 invoices a year with a Powered by Zoho line on your documents. FreeAgent is free if you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle. ServiceM8's free tier covers 30 jobs a month. Our own free plan needs no card and never expires, covering 10 quotes, 10 invoices and 10 emailed PDFs a month with unlimited clients and jobs. Check your bank before you pay anyone.

Can I keep using my spreadsheet alongside job software?

Plenty of people do, and it is usually a sign of which one is doing the real work. The common split is software for anything the customer sees, quotes and invoices and chasing, and the spreadsheet for your own numbers, because that is the part you built and trust. Running both for everything is how a job ends up invoiced twice.

Is a spreadsheet acceptable for HMRC records?

Yes. There is no requirement to use software to keep records, and a spreadsheet that is accurate and kept for six years does the job. Making Tax Digital changes what has to be submitted rather than what a record is allowed to be, and SoloDesks makes no submissions to HMRC at all, so if filing is what you are solving for you need an accounting package rather than us.

Coming from something else

• Paper job sheetsAn alternative to paper job sheets, for one pair of hands
• WhatsAppRunning your jobs out of WhatsApp
• Notes app and camera rollRunning jobs from the notes app on your phone

Written for your trade

• SoloDesks for Electricians →
• SoloDesks for Kitchen Fitters →
• SoloDesks for Builders →