A fair look at the spreadsheet
It is free, everyone can open it, and it bends to any process instantly. Those are real advantages, and this page takes them seriously.
But notice what the spreadsheet actually is: a list of claims about reality, maintained by hand during the busiest weeks of the year. It does not know when a client uploads a document. It does not know an email arrived. It does not remind anyone of anything. Every cell is only as true as the last person who remembered to update it, and by mid March, that was a while ago.
The spreadsheet also has a running cost: the checking, the status messages, the end of week reconciliation of what the sheet says against what is true. That cost is paid in staff time, and it peaks in the busiest weeks.
The honest comparison: the current system is only free until you count the hours spent maintaining it. What Untangly replaces is not the spreadsheet. It is the manual status keeping around it.
The same day, both ways
A client emails documents to whoever they emailed last time. Someone saves them to the drive, or means to.
The sheet says Okafor is "in prep." It has said that for two weeks. Whether that is true requires asking Sam.
Three reminder emails get written by hand. One goes to a client who already sent the item.
At 6 p.m., the person who owns the sheet updates it from memory. The firm's system of record is now a recollection.
The client uploads to their checklist. The document files itself to the engagement and checks itself off.
Okafor's status is whatever the file actually shows: tasks done, time logged, documents in. Asking Sam becomes optional.
Reminders went out at 9:00 on their own, only to clients who still owe something.
At 6 p.m., nobody updates anything, because the record updated itself all day. The system of record is the system where work happened.
When the spreadsheet is enough
If you are solo with a dozen clients, all annual work, no staff and no plans for any, your memory plus a sheet may genuinely be enough. Software would be overhead. We will tell you that in the demo too.
The line gets crossed when any of these become true: a second person, recurring monthly work, more than about forty active clients, or the first missed deadline that cost real money. Past that line, the spreadsheet's price stops being zero.
Replace the sheet with a system.
Bring the spreadsheet to the demo and we will rebuild it as templates and recurring engagements, live, so you can see exactly what replaces it.
Book a demo