Where an Excel lead sheet works
It is worth saying first: for one agent and a few hundred leads, a spreadsheet is a good tool. It is free or already paid for, everyone knows it, and you can shape it in minutes. Most agencies start there, and most should.
The trouble starts when a second person needs the same list, when sensitive customer documents arrive, or when someone other than the owner needs to know the state of every lead. A spreadsheet has no idea who is looking at it, or why.
Six ways it breaks
| What goes wrong | What you see | What the work needs |
|---|---|---|
| Copies multiply | Files called leads_final, leads_final2 and leads_NEW. Two people edit different versions and nobody knows which one has the latest call notes. | One place where the record lives, and everyone works on it. |
| No owner or date is forced | The columns exist but are blank on half the rows. Nothing flags an overdue follow-up unless someone filters for it. | A lead cannot exist without an owner, and overdue items come to the top without being asked. |
| History is patchy | A status is overwritten or a row is deleted. Depending on how the file is stored you may recover an old version, but you cannot easily answer what happened to this customer and who did it. | A log of who did what to each customer, and when. |
| Everyone sees everything | Anyone who has the file has every customer in it, including the ones they have no reason to see. | Each person sees only their part. |
| Stages are free text | One agent types Submitted, another Submited, another sent to bank. Filters and counts quietly miss rows. | A fixed list of stages. |
| Reports are rebuilt by hand | Every Monday someone copies numbers into a summary. By Tuesday it is out of date. | Totals that come from the same records the agents update. |
Today is 30 September.
A: Customer
B: Stage
C: Owner
- The same customer on two rows, with two different owners.
- Three spellings of one stage. A filter finds only one of them.
- No owner. Nobody is responsible for this lead.
- A follow-up date from last month. Nothing flags it.
A ten-minute test of your own sheet
You do not need to take this guide's word for it. Open your own lead sheet and try five things.
- Filter the stage column and read the list of values. Count how many spellings mean the same thing.
- Filter the owner column for blanks. Every blank is a lead nobody is responsible for.
- Sort the next follow-up date from oldest. Count how many are in the past, and how many are empty.
- Pick ten phone numbers and search for each one. Any that appear twice are duplicates, and the two rows may not agree.
- Ask what would leave the building if one agent copied the file and resigned today.
If the answers worry you, that is useful. It tells you which of the six failures is costing you most, and which of the fixes below to do first.
The two that cost the most
The second failure causes most of the lost leads, because it hides lateness. In a good system an overdue follow-up is visible without anyone looking for it. In a sheet it is visible only to a person who thinks to filter by date, and the person who forgot is the person least likely to do that.
The fourth causes most of the worry later. A spreadsheet that holds IC numbers, income and credit report details, sitting on several laptops and in several chat groups, becomes a data problem the first time an agent leaves. Do not lean on sheet protection to fix it. Microsoft's own support page says that worksheet protection is not intended as a security feature, and that it only stops people changing locked cells. It prevents accidents. It is not access control. See when an agent leaves, protect your leads and your customers' data.
How to make a spreadsheet last longer
If a CRM is not an option yet, these settings remove the worst of it.
- One master file in one shared place, with one person responsible for it. Stop emailing copies.
- Drop-down lists for stage and outcome, using Excel's data validation, so the words cannot vary. Microsoft's support page on creating a drop-down list shows the steps.
- An owner column and a next follow-up date on every row, with conditional formatting that turns a date red once it has passed.
- One row per person, with a unique reference number, so duplicates are easy to find.
- Keep IC copies and credit reports out of the sheet. Store the document in a folder with limited access, and put only a reference in the row.
- Save a dated copy at month end that nobody edits, so you can see what was true at the time.
These reduce copies, free-text stages and lateness. They do not give you per-person access to rows, a record of each customer's case, or call outcomes logged from your agents' phones.
Signs it is time to move
- More than three people use the sheet.
- Someone asks which file is the latest at least once a week.
- A lead was lost and nobody can say who last touched it.
- The boss spends an hour or more building the weekly numbers.
- The sheet holds IC numbers, income or credit report details.
- You worry about what an agent could take with them when they go.
One or two of these is a reason to tighten the sheet. Three or more is a good sign that the sheet now costs you more than a system would.
Moving without losing leads
Clean the sheet before you move it. Put one person on one row, put phone numbers in one format, merge the duplicates, and reduce the status column to a fixed list of stages. A messy import creates a messy system.
The Loan Advisory CRM imports your leads from Excel and shares them out across your team, and data import is part of the setup. For the steps in detail, read move from Excel to a CRM without losing leads.
Questions people ask next
- Is Google Sheets better than Excel for a team?
- It makes several people editing at once easier. The deeper problems are the same: nothing forces an owner or a date, stages are free text, and anyone who can open the sheet sees every row in it.
- Can I fix it by adding more columns?
- Columns add information, not behaviour. A next follow-up date does nothing unless someone filters for it. The gain from a system is that it brings the overdue items to the person, instead of waiting for the person to look.
- How many leads before a spreadsheet stops working?
- The number of leads is not the test. The number of people is. One agent can manage thousands of rows. Three agents on one file produce copies, overwrites and blame, however few leads there are.
- Is it safe to keep IC numbers in a spreadsheet?
- It is risky, because the file is easy to copy and forward. Keep documents in a folder with limited access and put only a reference in the sheet. See keeping credit reports and IC copies safe.
Sources
This guide is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules and bank policies change, so check the current position with the bank, the regulator or a professional before you act.