Despite the many benefits of MS Excel, it is quite possible that Microsoft Excel is the most potentially dangerous software on the planet. This outrageous assertion has been made by taking into account the various drawbacks that taint the finance spreadsheet of Excel. So here is a list of the few most detrimental drawbacks of using spreadsheets in Excel for financing work.

Susceptible to Petty Errors – This is a significant threat to your financial records on spreadsheets because

• a negative sign or wrongly aligned row may seem pretty harmless, but they go a long way to sap the confidence of the investors and
• may cause considerable loss of opportunities amounting to thousands of dollars
• Google recounts some of these spreadsheet mishaps to make you more alert.

Troubleshooting Obstructions- You may consider testing the Excel spreadsheets to reduce the risk of certain data items but spreadsheets are not equipped for that so

• It is commonplace for correlated spreadsheet statistics to be scattered all over various other folders across many different offices.
• Even if you get down to tracing the positions of all linked files, by connecting the formulaic logic from a cell to the other, the task is extremely time consuming and laborious.

Fraud Alert- Of all the various disadvantages of managing finance on Excel spreadsheet, this threat is perhaps the most dangerous drawback.

• Companies all over the globe have lost millions of dollars from fraudulent manipulation of company's spreadsheet data.
• This threat is so potent because of the lack of controls which makes it easy to change values and formulas without being caught.
  

Unsuitable for Agile Commercial Methods- In this day and age, the major business structures are being shaped and reshaped by the rapidly changing scenario of the global market climate. There are many factors that disrupt the smooth flow of business and obstruct carrying over procedures.

• Some of the most potent factors are acquisitions, mergers, buyouts, natural disasters like earthquakes, floods or man made changes like wars and new technological advent. So if the business is not flexible enough to adjust to these changes then it will be kept back, slowly pushed on the verge of extinction.
• Generally people who document the spreadsheets have not the vaguest know how of software documentation in most case the spreadsheets acquire a personalized outlook which creates huge problems for any new person who takes over the post or company.
• In more cases than not, the new person has to begin at the start which is a burden to have to go through.

Unsuitable for Collaborations- A business has many facets of collaborative activities, like

• Budgeting, forecasting and planning. All these require information from different sources and the people working on different departments, collaborate together for a project.
• So scattered information is usually stored as spreadsheets in Excel but team members find it increasingly hard to link the various pieces together for a collaborative work.
• These spreadsheets are sent via email which may be susceptible to erroneous data or duplications that cause a lot of problems.

So there are potent disadvantages of using Excel for critical process in finance.