Spreadsheets vs ERP: when is it time to switch?

Any two of these means the switch is overdue:

• Version conflicts: two people edit different copies and someone's work is lost monthly.
• The keeper problem: one person understands the formulas, and they can't take vacation.
• Stale numbers: decisions are made on data that was true two weeks ago.
• Re-typing: the same customer or amount is entered in three different files.
• Silent breakage: a formula stopped summing a column in March and nobody noticed until June.

The change is structural, not cosmetic: records replace cells. A customer is one record referenced everywhere, not a name re-typed in five sheets. A receivable has a status, not a background color someone maintains. The consequence is that data stays consistent without anyone policing it — the discipline moves from people to the system.

Don't attempt a big-bang migration of five years of history. Import the active data — current customers, open receivables and payables, deals in flight — and start operating forward. Keep the old spreadsheets as archive. Most teams complete this in a day, because the active dataset of an SMB is far smaller than its history.

ERP Mobi's free plan is a low-risk way to run this experiment: if the team is faster within two weeks, the decision makes itself.