By Hiran de Silva
Let’s start with a simple, almost innocent question:
“Can you build a budgeting workbook for 400 departments?”
Almost everyone in the Excel world answers this the same way — not because they’re foolish, but because this is how they’ve been taught to think.
The Literal Path: 400 Canvases
The intuitive response goes something like this:
- One sheet per department
- Or one workbook per department
- Or 400 CSV files
- Or some combination of the above
In every case, the assumption is the same:
Each department needs its own physical canvas.
So we end up with:
- A workbook with 400 sheets
- Or 400 workbooks with one sheet each
- Or 400 “things” that need to be passed around, consolidated, reconciled, and controlled
This is literal thinking — thinking in terms of visible objects rather than data.
And this is exactly how “Excel Hell” is born.
A Small Shift That Changes Everything
Now let’s take a step sideways — not forward. Sideways.
Instead of asking:
“How do I manage 400 sheets?”
Ask this:
“What if I treat all budgets as one dataset?”
Conceptually, this is not advanced.
Excel users already understand:
- datasets
- tables
- rows and columns
- data analysis
Every beautifully formatted budget sheet you’ve ever seen contains the same active ingredients:
- department ID
- account
- period
- amount
Strip away the formatting, and every budget becomes just rows of data.
So instead of 400 canvases… Let’s see how this model is improved.
One Table. One Truth.
See this.
- One Excel Table
- 11,200 rows instead of 400 sheets
- One UI sheet that renders any department on demand
You type in a department ID.
Click Get.
The budget for that department appears.
Male a change.
Click Put.
The data is updated in the Table. The one Table.
From the user’s point of view:
- The workflow is almost identical
- The skill level required is no higher
- There is no “leap” in Excel expertise required
But architecturally?
It’s a different universe. A different universe.
Why “Option B” Still Isn’t Enough
At this stage, many people stop and say:
“I don’t see a big difference.”
And they’re right — cosmetically.
Both models still live inside a single workbook.
The spreadsheet contains, as they do:
- The reporting layout
- The logic
- The user interface
- The data
All four things are still tangled together in one self-contained workbook. As all single-user personal spreadsheets do.
Which means:
- One person at a time
- One copy of the truth
- Still no real collaboration
So we haven’t solved the enterprise problem yet.
But now we’re standing right at the fork in the road.
The One Move That Creates Enterprise Excel
Here is the entire breakthrough — and it’s only one move:
Remove the data from the spreadsheet, and locate it centrally, where all the spreadsheets can reach it.
That’s it. Just the data.
Not the logic.
Not the layout.
Not the UI.
Just the data.
So then, the Excel Table becomes:
- a table in a relational database
- stored centrally
- shared securely
Its one version of the truth. In this case, now all 400 budget holders work with the same data independently.
Excel already knows how to do this.
It always has.
Long before Power Query.
Using the same Microsoft 365 technology we already have:
- You have created a relational database in a shared location
- Created by Excel, using Excel’s already built-in capability
Despite what many people think
No IT project.
We don’t need to wait up to a year for it
No governance issues
No DBA army.
We have it in seconds, not months.
What Changes When Data Is Centralised
Now something profound happens.
- 400 people can work at the same time
- Each with the same Excel template
- Each updating their own department
- From anywhere in the world
No passing files.
No consolidating chaos.
No broken links.
No version-control nightmares. There is only one version, the current version.
This is the quantum leap:
From single-user spreadsheets
To enterprise-scale collaboration
And all we did was move the data.
Why This Is the Fork in the Road
From this point forward, the paths diverge sharply.
Left Fork: The Traditional Path
- Ever more fragile spreadsheets
- Increasing governance pain
- Audit trails bolted on with duct tape
- Real-time collaboration becoming impossible
- “Excel Hell” blamed on the tool
Right Fork: The Enterprise Path
- Access control added naturally
- Consolidation becomes built-in
- Audit trails become automatic
- History, notes, commentary, archive — all simple
- Excel becomes a client app, not a container
One path becomes harder and harder.
The other becomes easier and more powerful. And adapts to changing business requirements effortlessly.
Why Nobody Teaches This
This is the uncomfortable part.
The reason this fork is rarely shown is not technical.
It’s educational.
Modern Excel teaching is driven by:
- surface-level techniques
- visible tricks
- single-user problems
Enterprise architecture doesn’t trend on social media.
But it’s exactly what CFOs and Finance Leaders need.
The Real Opportunity
This fork in the road explains something strange:
Why, with more Excel education than ever before,
enterprise spreadsheets are more broken than ever.
And it explains something else too.
This is where:
- careers accelerate
- influence increases
- and pay multiplies
Because very few people ever take the right-hand fork. This is a value-adding bonus top management rarely think is possible.
Final Thought
This is not about Excel vs tools.
It’s not about Power Query vs databases.
It’s not even about technology.
It’s about how we think.
And once you see this fork in the road —
you can never unsee it.
Join the next Excel Global Happening and experience it yourself.
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