Spreadsheets vs. Dryrun

This month’s School for SaaS tools article features are spreadsheets.

No big deal, right? Used by everyone from your history teacher for grading purposes to your accountant, to nurses, Microsoft Excel and its freeware sisters (we’re looking at you, OpenOffice, Google Sheets, and Libre Office) have shaped the conversation around modern accounting in many ways. However, spreadsheets aren’t a great forecasting solution.

We’re continually learning something about user’s perspectives on business intelligence and operational finance when writing these comparative articles! Potential customers and users also benefit from the data we gather into an easy to understand format.

If strategic business intelligence via forecasting is something you’re considering for this year, ask:

What should forecasting business cashflow look like?

What can cloud software do for my cash flow?

How will I increase cash coming in my business?

Be sure you review our other articles for software app comparisons across the industry.

A global focus on forecasting and business intelligence tools is necessary in today’s economic climate. Cash flow management, financial intelligence and collaborative work helps every business work more efficiently.

Therefore, reading about other software solutions helps every apps offer is never a bad thing – it’s important that businesses and their accountants stay on top of software solutions that could reveal growth opportunities and lower risk.

Debuting below: Spreadsheets vs. Dryrun!

Spreadsheets vs. Dryrun

Excel is the granddaddy of the modern spreadsheet, however it has an even earlier predecessor. Born basically by accident at Harvard, the first spreadsheet was 5 columns wide and 20 rows long. It allowed the user to scroll rapidly through numeric data and calculate both laterally and vertically.

Ideally suited for businesses that need to trap a lot of raw data, spreadsheets have grown increasingly complex with a myriad of functions that can enhance their usefulness – there’s also no true size limitations to a spreadsheet as many a user has determined. On the other hand, Dryrun’s simple and efficient structure helps users record and visualize cash flow, budget and sales forecasts with the intent to extract meaningful business intelligence for operative next-steps.

Spreadsheet Overview

Every spreadsheet has a host of formulas and add-ons that increase the functionality of the program. They can be used together or independently to automate an almost unlimited number of processes and outputs. While Excel’s price-point and positioning has varied greatly over the years, you’d have to go a long way to find a business person, from start-up to enterprise, who hasn’t worked with the software. Increasingly, free options have the functionality of Excel but cloud options like Google Sheets push advanced sharing through the cloud.

Dryrun App Overview

Dryrun’s quick and simple – so what’s the catch? How about the quick modelling of either manually built or automatically imported data that can be as full or minimal as business owners require. Simple to build and iterate basically forever with no tweaking, you can overlay unlimited scenarios in order to get a visual sense of where risks or opportunities may be waiting along the timeline.

Dryrun’s daily imports from Xero and QuickBooks Online are easy and important time-savers for some users, while others import won and potential deals from Pipedrive to help your business development team shape sales outreach over the upcoming months.

Businesses and advisors who work in industries like agriculture, IT, manufacturing and other businesses with highly variable cash flow find Dryrun exceeds their requirements for forecasting software. Collaboratively or independently, stakeholders assess, monitor and update cash flow and sales forecasts to shape operative strategy.

It’s easy to mistake business intelligence for data collection at first – while raw data has its place in business, planning operative strategy to ensure an accurate picture of future risks and growth opportunities is even more important.

Equipping everyone with spreadsheet capabilities like Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel in the age of bespoke cloud computing solutions can be a pricey and personnel-intensive move. By contrast, if you or your team are looking to supercharge your forward-looking strategy in an easy and secure manner (i.e. no cascading data entry mistakes) try Dryrun! We offer a no-hassle free trial.

Want to read other articles in our School for SaaS Tools Comparison Series? Find them here:

Float vs. Dryrun

Futrli vs. Dryrun

Fathom vs. Dryrun

Spotlight Reporting vs. Dryrun

Next up in our series:

Tagetik vs. Dryrun

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