Spreadsheets are the pillars of our modern-day society. They are useful for work, record-keeping, collaborating, or just personal organization. In the world of spreadsheets, there are two main contenders – Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. We would like to take a moment to talk more about these two formats to highlight their differences and to explain which you should use in various situations that you may encounter with your business.

Here’s what you need to know about what makes Sheets and Excel different.‍

Pricing‍

Google Sheets is available for free to use with no installation required. On the other hand, Excel requires a one-time payment to Microsoft Office or a subscription to Office 365. Google Sheets is the clear winner here in terms of pricing. ‍

Collaboration‍

Collaboration is made incredibly simple with Google Sheets. As the owner of a spreadsheet, you can decide how much or how little access everyone has (view vs edit) to it. Furthermore, you can also collaborate in real-time with your team. In real-time collaboration, multiple users can interact with the same document at the same time. This is an incredibly advantageous feature for team projects and documents that require input from multiple parties. Clearly, collaboration is built into Google Sheets. Any modifications or comments made can be seen in real-time and you can quickly see what cells other users are on. You can also keep track of every single change made by clicking the “last edit”  text at the top of the toolbar. Microsoft Excel Online also has features for collaboration built in: users can see others’ work as well as who made which particular change. Unfortunately, users of the standalone Excel application (as opposed to Excel online) cannot host a co-authoring session. Yet again, Google Sheets is the winner here.‍

Sharing‍

Simple sharing is a huge benefit of Google Sheets. If you are trying to share your spreadsheet with anybody within your organization, Google Sheets’ “Share” feature is easy to find and use. Additionally, It automatically sends a notification to the email that you have shared the spreadsheet with.‍

Cloud and Synchronization‍

Cloud storage allows you to access files from anywhere without having to have a program downloaded.

Google Sheets was actually built as a cloud-based alternative to Microsoft Excel. Everything is accessible from your Google account and you are able to see and open all of your files from Google Drive. Synchronization is another unique Google Sheets feature because it is all done automatically. If you create a file, it is saved on your Google Drive, which instantly makes it accessible from anywhere. Google Sheets autosaves every change you make, so you never have to worry about losing new data if your computer crashes. If you’re using Excel on Office 2019 or an earlier version, a special setting is required for synchronization. Evidently, this is another area where Google Sheets comes out ahead.‍

Why Do Some People Prefer Google Sheets?‍

While a lot of people stick with Excel, many more have switched over to Google Sheets. There are multiple reasons why people prefer Sheets over Excel:

• Easier to learn
• Accessible through different web browsers
• Cleaner interface
• Real-time collaboration feature
• Simple collaboration with convenient document sharing
• Free
• You are able to collaborate on the same document from anywhere in the world
• Cloud storage eliminates the need to back up files on a shared drive or a portable hard drive.
• Built-in revision history

‍Why Do Accountants and Bookkeepers  Prefer G-Accon?‍

First of all, we can truly say that G-Accon is a Cloud-based application built on Google technology and is a platform that enables Google Sheets to connect with your business. ‍

Cloud and Synchronization in G-Accon‍

With G-Accon, you have the ability to...

• Seamlessly integrate Google Sheets with Xero and synchronize data in both directions.
• Easily connect to multiple Xero companies/clients and pull real-time reports & data into Google spreadsheets.
• Make changes to your data in Google Sheets and push it back to Xero automatically or with one click. No messy CSV files and no hassle.
• Automatically generate and export data & reports to Excel, PDF, Google Sheets or CSV files.
• Auto-email updated reports to multiple recipients.
• Connect to multiple Xero organizations, consolidate data, build custom reports and publish live charts to a website.
• Connect to Google Data Studio, Tableau or Power BI to build interactive BI dashboards
  
  

Of course, you can save your custom reports and query templates in the Cloud, re-use them, share with your team and clients, and have the opportunity to focus more on global business tasks.

Collaboration and sharing in G-Accon

You can also use other teams’ templates as the basis for your own because the system uniquely allows you to download various shared/saved templates and modify them.

A key benefit of shared templates is their reusability and consistency. These templates allow development investments from one team to be reused and shared with another. This makes your work consistent and replicable across various teams and departments within your company, highlighting your company’s reliability.

You can also collaborate in Google Drive with your team, colleagues, and  clients.

G-Accon for Xero is a great tool for accountants, advisors, bookkeepers, and business owners to extract, review, and cleanup Xero data, customize and automate reporting, consolidate data, import data in bulk, build charts, and manipulate data using the power and convenience of Google Sheets. Our users report increased productivity and enormous time savings on everyday tasks such as reporting, data entry, and reconciliation workflows.

‍