Excel is the most used FP&A tool in the world and it will stay on your team: for modelling, for one-off analysis, for whatever fits no system. Where it stops making sense is the recurring close of a group: export from each ERP, paste, reconcile, consolidate and redo when a late entry lands. That is what Fibady automates. This comparison is about that work, not about Excel in general.
Line-by-line comparison
| Close task | In Excel | In Fibady |
|---|---|---|
| Loading ERP data | Export and paste every month, per entity | 25+ ERPs connected (live API with Odoo, Holded, Tango, SOS Contador and EternumPRO); otherwise you export the journal to Excel and Fibady adapts it, remembering the format |
| Account classification | VLOOKUPs over the chart; break when an account changes | Mapping done once; new accounts are flagged |
| Multi-entity consolidation | Master sheet linked to n workbooks; eliminations by hand | By consolidation group: intercompany accounts, or entries tagged as intercompany, are left out of the group total |
| Multi-currency | Manual FX table, one method per sheet | FX by month and currency; three currencies (accounting, reporting, display) in one click |
| P&L, balance sheet, cash flow | Three sheets that must tie to each other | Derived from one source and checked with invariants |
| Budget vs actual | Another sheet, another structure, another paste | Plan vs. actual in the same P&L structure; variances by line, area, company or group |
| Sales and purchasing | Pivot table over an invoice export | Commercial analysis: sales and purchasing with the margin by customer, supplier, product and period |
| People costs | A separate headcount sheet | People: fully loaded cost per person and scenarios for hires, raises and leavers |
| Board report | PowerPoint the night before | AI-generated report with charts and commentary; you review and export to Word or PDF |
| Traceability | "Where does this number come from?" → search n tabs | Every figure opens to the ERP entry |
| Versioning | close_v3_FINAL_ok.xlsx | One source with history |
| Key-person dependency | One person understands the master sheet | Any user with permissions logs in and understands |
| Error risk | High and silent: a badly dragged cell does not warn | Control Center: checks each month before you present it (debits = credits, balanced balance sheet, unclassified accounts and movements) |
| Asking the numbers | Search the sheet by hand | FibadyGPT and Fibady Agents in the app, plus a connector for ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini |
| Scaling to more entities | Each new entity multiplies the work | Mapped and added to the consolidation |
| Ad-hoc analysis and modelling | Excel wins: total flexibility | Export to Excel and model there |
| Cost | Licence ~$0, but ~25 h/month of skilled work | $200 per entity per month, ~6 h/month of review |
What does closing in Excel cost?
A three-entity group spending 25 hours a month on the close, at $35/h controller cost, spends about $10,500 a year building reports that expire the following month. With Fibady it pays $7,200 a year for the three entities and the close drops to about 6 hours: the net time saving exceeds the software cost from month one, and the work that remains is the work that adds value. Illustrative estimate; in the demo we calculate it with your hours.
When to stay in Excel
If you have one entity with a simple operation, if your books have no structured journal, or if your ERP is mid-migration. In those cases Fibady will not help you yet, and we will say so in the demo.