When the spreadsheet stops working.
Almost every OMC starts on Excel, and almost every one outgrows it. Apportionment drifts, only one person understands the file, arrears go unchased and owner data sits in a sheet that gets emailed around. Cuan replaces the lot, and imports your spreadsheet in days.
A spreadsheet is fine, until it quietly isn't.
The failures are not loud. No error message tells you the apportionment drifted or that an owner was never chased. You find out at the AGM, or when the person who kept the file steps away. Here is where it breaks.
On a spreadsheet
Apportionment drifts; the schedule stops summing to 100 percent.
On Cuan
Every schedule locked to exactly 100 percent, checked automatically.
On a spreadsheet
No record of who changed a figure or when.
On Cuan
A full audit trail on every entry, ready for a director or the PSRA.
On a spreadsheet
One person understands the file.
On Cuan
The whole board and agent see a shared, role-scoped system.
On a spreadsheet
Owner data emailed around in a shared tab.
On Cuan
Role-based access; owners see only their own, GDPR by design.
On a spreadsheet
Arrears chased by memory; the bank reconciled by eye.
On Cuan
An automatic arrears ladder and open-banking reconciliation.
On a spreadsheet
The AGM stitched together by hand each year.
On Cuan
Accounts, notice, pack and minutes produced in one flow.
The six ways a spreadsheet lets an OMC down.
Each one is invisible until it costs money, time or trust. Software makes each one impossible by design.
Apportionment that silently drifts
One dragged formula and the schedule no longer sums to 100 percent. Owners are over or under-charged, and nobody notices until an AGM.
No audit trail
A spreadsheet cannot tell you who changed a figure, or when. When a director or the PSRA asks, there is no answer, only a file.
One person who understands it
The OMC's finances live in a workbook only one person can navigate. When they are on leave, or leave for good, the OMC is stuck.
GDPR risk in every shared tab
Owner names, balances and arrears in a file that gets emailed around is a data-protection problem waiting to happen. Access cannot be scoped by role.
No arrears process, no reconciliation
Chasing is manual and ad hoc, and the bank is reconciled by eye. Money leaks, and the board has no reliable read on what is actually collected.
The AGM rebuilt from scratch
Every year the accounts, the notice and the pack are stitched together by hand from tabs and emails, instead of produced in one flow.
From a fragile file to a system of record.
Cuan turns the workbook only one person understands into something the whole board can trust.
100%
apportionment, checked automatically
€1.50
per unit per month, all-in
Days
to import your spreadsheet
Every
change logged and reversible
Better together
What replaces the tabs.
The jobs your spreadsheet does badly, done properly, in one place.
The detail
Why do OMCs run on spreadsheets in the first place?
Because they are free, familiar and good enough at the start. A new or small self-managed Owners' Management Company can track a handful of units and a single budget in Excel without much trouble. The problem is that an OMC only grows more complex: more units, multiple schedules, a sinking fund, arrears, an AGM and compliance dates. The spreadsheet does not fail on day one, it fails slowly, which is exactly why it is so easy to leave in place too long.
What are the real risks of managing service charges in Excel?
The financial risk is apportionment error and unreconciled money: a schedule that no longer sums to 100 percent over or under-charges owners, and a client account reconciled by eye hides leaks. The governance risk is the missing audit trail, so no one can evidence who changed what. The legal risk is GDPR: a file with owner names, balances and arrears that gets emailed around cannot scope access by role. And the operational risk is the single point of failure, the one person who understands the file. This is general information, not legal advice.
When is it time to move to OMC software?
A practical rule: when two or more of these are true, the spreadsheet has already stopped being safe. The apportionment no longer reliably sums to 100 percent; arrears are rising because nobody has time to chase; a director asks for figures you cannot quickly evidence; or the person who owns the file is stepping back. Any one of those is a warning; two is a decision.
How do you move from a spreadsheet to Cuan without losing work?
Your spreadsheet becomes the starting point rather than something you throw away. Cuan imports your unit schedule, owners, opening balances, apportionment split and budget through a guided workbench, suggests each mapping and lands the apportionment on exactly 100 percent, and you approve it before anything goes live. Most OMCs raise their first demand from Cuan within days, with no re-keying.
Questions
Spreadsheets vs OMC software, answered plainly.
Bring your spreadsheet. Watch it become a system.
Send us one development's sheet. We will import it, land the apportionment on 100 percent, and bill it back to you, so you can see the risk disappear.