From Spreadsheet Chaos to Enterprise Platform: A Migration Playbook

Most mid-sized SA companies run on Excel and Google Sheets long past the breaking point. Here's the step-by-step we use to move them onto a real platform without losing momentum.

Published 2026-02-03 by Recadi

Every mid-size company we work with has the same story: the spreadsheet that started as a quick fix is now running a R200m business. It's brittle, it's siloed, three people understand the formulas, and one of them is leaving. This is the playbook we use to get them off it.

Step 1: Document the spreadsheet, don't replace it

Spend two weeks mapping every formula, every macro, every hidden tab. The spreadsheet is the most accurate spec of your business. Skip this step and you'll rebuild a worse version of what you already have.

Step 2: Build the data model first

Before any UI, get the entities and relationships right. Customers, orders, stock, transactions. If the model is wrong, the platform will fight you for years.

Step 3: Migrate one process at a time

Pick the process with the highest pain and lowest dependencies. Ship it. Let the team use it for two weeks. Then pick the next one. Big-bang migrations fail because people quietly keep using the spreadsheet.

Step 4: Decommission deliberately

On a fixed date, the spreadsheet becomes read-only. Not deleted, read-only. Anyone who needs to edit it has to use the new platform. This is the only step that actually finishes a migration.

Timeline reality check

For a company running 5-10 core spreadsheets, plan for 4-6 months end-to-end. Anyone promising less is selling you a rewrite, not a migration.