Totally get where you're coming from. I fell into that Notion rabbit hole myself—spent more time picking out icons and rearranging columns than actually updating payment statuses. Ended up back in Excel because sometimes simpler really is better. I've found a basic spreadsheet with conditional formatting does wonders for quickly spotting overdue payments or upcoming deadlines without any fuss. Plus, everyone seems comfortable with it, from contractors to the finance folks at the bank. Might not win any beauty contests, but at least it keeps me sane when everything else on site is going sideways...
Haha, I feel this. I tried Trello for a while thinking it'd simplify things, but ended up spending way too much time color-coding cards and moving stuff around. Eventually went back to good old Excel too—conditional formatting is a lifesaver. Plus, it's easy enough to share with everyone involved without needing a tutorial session first. Sometimes the boring option really is the best one...especially when you're juggling a million other details on site.
"Eventually went back to good old Excel too—conditional formatting is a lifesaver."
Yeah, Excel might be old-school, but it's reliable. I've seen people get lost in fancy apps more than once. Curious though, anyone tried pairing Excel with cloud-based solutions to streamline updates from the field?
Totally agree—Excel's underrated. I've tried pairing it with Google Sheets before (just exporting/importing), and it actually worked pretty well for quick updates on-site. Nothing fancy, but saved me from those "wait, which version is this?" headaches...
Excel's handy, sure, but doesn't the exporting/importing routine get tedious after a while? I tried something similar for tracking material deliveries, and eventually the constant back-and-forth drove me nuts. Ended up using a shared cloud-based spreadsheet instead—less hassle overall. Curious if anyone's found a smooth way to automate that Excel-to-cloud sync without losing data or creating duplicates...
