Replace Your Excel Tracker With a Custom App: A CFO's Story

If you're tracking anything important in Excel, I want to challenge you to try something different: build your own app.

I know how that sounds coming from a CFO. Building software isn't my job. But lately I've watched simple, custom-built tools replace spreadsheets that were costing my clients time, money, and peace of mind. And you no longer need a developer or a big budget to do it.

The spreadsheet that kept everyone up at night

One of my clients was tracking staff documents in Excel: onboarding new hires, tracking expiration dates on staff documents, and following up when something was about to lapse.

It worked, technically. But it was cumbersome and error-prone. Every update depended on someone remembering to open the file, find the right row, and change the right cell. When the stakes are compliance, "someone remembering" is not a system.

I'm the CFO. Document tracking isn't my area. But I saw the pain, and I couldn't not solve it.

An hour to build, about $100 a month to run

I found a vibe coding tool (tools like Lovable, where you describe what you want in plain English and it builds the app) and built an internal staff tracker and compliance tracker for the client.

It took me about an hour to build. Keeping it current takes about half an hour a week to process updates and incorporate changes as the team asks for them.

On the market, a tool like that would probably cost $50,000 a year for a company their size. We're running it for about $100 a month.

That's not a rounding error. For a growing business, that's a hire, a piece of equipment, or a cushion in the cash forecast.

We did the same thing inside my own firm

At Tee Up Advisors, we were tracking our to-do lists and quality checklists in Asana. It's a good product. But it took a while to get it set up the way we needed, and it still didn't quite fit how we actually work.

So I built our own task tracker around our exact workflow: custom reminders, checklists, recurring tasks, and a profile for each client. It probably saves us a few thousand dollars a year.

The savings aren't even the best part. The team loves using it, because it fits the way they work instead of forcing them to work the way the software wants. When someone asks for something new, we can add it in a matter of minutes.

When to build a custom app instead of buying software

Not everything should be custom-built. But it's worth a serious look when:

• You're living in a spreadsheet nobody trusts. If people double-check the file before acting on it, the file isn't doing its job.
• The off-the-shelf option is priced for a bigger company. Many tools are built and priced for enterprises. You may only need 10% of the features.
• Your process is specific to you. If you've spent months bending software to fit your workflow, it may be faster to build software that fits it from the start.
• The cost of a mistake is high. Compliance dates, client deliverables, anything with a deadline and a consequence.

What to watch for with vibe coding

Building it is the easy part. A few things deserve thought before you start:

• Who owns it. Someone needs to maintain the tool and make changes. Budget real time for that, even if it's half an hour a week.
• Where the data lives. Know where your information is stored and who can see it, especially for anything involving employees or clients.
• Start small. Replace one spreadsheet, prove it works, then expand.

The bigger lesson

As a CFO, I spend a lot of time asking owners where their money and time are going. More often than you'd expect, the answer includes software that doesn't fit and spreadsheets held together by one person's memory. This is the kind of thing I look for in every engagement.

Before you buy another piece of software, or keep living with a spreadsheet nobody trusts, ask a simple question: could we build exactly what we need?

The answer is yes more often than you'd think.

Quick answers

What is vibe coding? Vibe coding means building software by describing what you want in plain English to an AI tool, which then writes the app for you. You don't need to know how to code.

Is it safe to build your own business app? It can be, as long as you know where the data is stored, who has access, and who is responsible for maintaining it. Start with one process, keep sensitive data limited, and review access regularly.

What are you still tracking in Excel that you wish worked better?