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A ‘Better Way’?

March 23, 2026

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By Hiran de Silva

‘A Better Way?’
The Best Way?
‘Stop Doing That, Do This Instead’?

One of Hiran’s favourite rants and explainers … on what people call a better way.

I’m going to keep this brief. The shorter version for those in a rush.

Is there really such a thing as a better way in Excel?

Because what I’m going to show you here… is that if someone believes there is a best way… then they are thinking very narrowly.

It’s a myopic view.

Let me explain why.

Excel is one of the most widely used tools in the world. It’s used in hundreds of contexts, for hundreds of purposes, by people with completely different responsibilities.

Some are hobbyists.
Some depend on it for their job.
For others, profit and loss depends on it.

So when someone says… “this is a better way”… you have to ask:

Better for whom?
Better for what purpose?
Better in what situation?

Because without that… the statement means nothing.

It’s like saying there’s a better chariot.

In Roman times… yes, you could have a better chariot.

But today… a motorcycle is a better ‘chariot’.

And even then… better for what?

Speed? Safety? Appearance?

There is no absolute “better”. Only contextual better.

And yet, on social media, we constantly see:

The best way to do this.
Stop doing that. Do this instead.

All of it… without context.

So let’s get to the real issue.

There are two completely different worlds of Excel.

The first… is Excel as a document.

This is how almost everyone sees it.

A workbook is like a sheet of paper. You bring data into it, you analyse it inside it, you build formulas, you produce outputs… all within that one file. It is then sent around like an internal memo.

This is what dominates social media, training courses, and tutorials.

Everything happens inside the workbook.

This is Excel as a personal productivity document. A document.

But there is another world.

Excel as a system.

And this is how management thinks.

Management is not interested in better formulas or faster manual work. Keyboard shortcuts.

They want systems.

They want processes that run continuously.
They want automation.
They want end-to-end productivity.
They want the various functions within the business to be connected. Seamlessly.

They want the business to run… not spreadsheets to be worked on.

And this is where the contradiction appears.

Because all Excel education is focused on the document mindset… while business operates on the systems mindset.

Now let me give you a simple example.

Account reconciliation.

A very common task.

If you look online, you’ll see countless demonstrations.

Two lists… side by side… ticking items off… identifying differences.

Even when Power Query is used… the concept is the same.

It’s a digital version of pen and paper.

But, when Excel arrived, there’s another way. Quite a paradigm shift.

Instead of comparing side by side…

You append the two lists into one structure.
You reverse the sign on one side.
You summarise.

And what cancels out to zero … disappears.

What remains… is your reconciliation.

Now think about what that means.

It is systemisable.

This approach doesn’t just reconcile one pair of lists.

It can reconcile hundreds. Any number against any number of lists.

It can run automatically.
It can run every day.
It requires no manual effort.

This is no longer a task.

It’s a system.

And here’s the key point.

The difference between these two approaches…

…is not technology.