By Hiran de Silva
On social media, it is often claimed that Excel and Access are rivals. A recent LinkedIn post even argued that Excel with Power Query can replace a relational database.
That view is wrong.
In reality, Access is Excel’s best friend. Together, they form a partnership that is accessible, affordable, and agile—powerful enough to supersede enterprise systems that cost millions. This is the biggest opportunity in Excel today.
To prove this, let’s test Excel against the very challenge that is most often used to demonise it: scalability and consolidation in budgeting.
The Scenario
Imagine a global organisation with 400 operating units in 90 cities across 50 countries and 4 regions.
- Each unit completes a standard budget template.
- Budgets must roll up by city, by country, by region, and then globally.
- Management at every level needs live collaboration.
Excel on Its Own
Method 1: External Links
Traditionally, budgets are consolidated with external links. This allows live updates and collaboration. But everyone knows the risk—external links are fragile. A single error can collapse the model like a house of cards.
Method 2: Power Query
The “best practice” widely promoted online is to use Power Query instead. This removes the risk of broken links, but introduces two new dealbreakers:
- Loss of live collaboration
- External links were live.
- Power Query consolidations are batch.
- An administrator must collect templates, place them in a folder, run a refresh, then distribute updated consolidations.
- Real-time budget discussions become impossible.
- Pivot tables instead of reports
- Instead of receiving familiar budget reports, management now receives pivot tables.
- For executives and senior managers, this is unacceptable. They expect reports, not analysis tools.
So Excel on its own fails: external links are dangerous, and Power Query downgrades collaboration and usability.
Excel with Its Best Friend
Now let’s add Access.
Each of the 400 budget templates has two simple buttons: PUT and GET.
- PUT uploads the 28 budget rows for that unit into a shared Access database table.
- Across 400 units, this produces one clean table with 11,200 rows.
- GET retrieves consolidations from that same table at any level: unit, city, country, region, or global.
From any single budget sheet, you can access all 145 consolidations instantly. Updates are live. Change a shop budget, click PUT, and every consolidation is updated immediately.
Audit Trail
Management also needs traceability. From any consolidation figure, a click drills down to show the detail by shop—the lowest level of granularity.
- No external links.
- No broken models.
- No batch delays.
- No pivot tables.
- Just live reports in the familiar format.
Where Is Access?
You never see it.
The Access database sits quietly on a shared drive. Users never open it. They don’t need to know it exists. It simply stores and returns the numbers on demand.
Excel does all the work. Access is the silent partner—the best friend that makes it possible.
The Result
By letting Excel and Access work together, we have:
- Eliminated external links.
- Kept the process live, not batch.
- Preserved familiar reports, not pivot tables.
- Added drill-down audit trail.
- Scaled to 400 units and 145 consolidations, all from one sheet.
This works not because Excel is replacing Access, but because Excel is using Access as its sidekick.
The Future of Excel
Excel integrated with a relational database—whether Access, SQL Server, or a cloud database—is the future of enterprise spreadsheets.
Together, they achieve outcomes that ERP systems and FP&A tools struggle to deliver: real-time collaboration, accessibility, affordability, and agility.
Excel and Access are not rivals. They are best friends. And together, they are unbeatable.
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