EvaluationsHub vs Excel

Excel is a great place to start managing accounts. It stops working around account 12.

This page is an honest comparison. Excel is free, flexible, and already on your laptop. EvaluationsHub costs money. Here is exactly when the trade-off flips.

Bottom line:  If you manage fewer than 10 key accounts, use our free Excel templates. If you manage more, or if any of them are churning, read on.
Get the free Excel templatesStart the 30-day pilot

Excel Works well

For small portfolios with stable accounts managed by one person, Excel is perfectly adequate. Use it if:

  • You manage fewer than 10 accounts
  • Your account base is relatively stable
  • One person owns all account relationships
  • You have no formal QBR process yet
  • You want to start tracking health for free

Excel breaks down Watch out

Excel becomes a liability when account management involves teams, frequency, or revenue stakes. Move on when:

  • You manage 10+ accounts across a team
  • Scores go stale because no one updates them
  • QBR prep takes 3+ hours per account
  • You find out an account is at risk from the client, not the data
  • Salesforce holds the CRM data but doesn’t show account health
Head-to-head

What Excel does, and where it stops

A practical comparison across the things that actually matter for B2B account management. Not a feature checklist.

CapabilityExcel / Google SheetsEvaluationsHub
Account health scoreManual, per row, goes stale immediatelyLive, multi-source, updates automatically
Signal sourcesWhatever you type in. No integrations.NPS, delivery data, CRM events, ITSM, manual input
QBR preparation3–5 hours per account. Rebuilt each cycle.Pre-populated from live data. 20-minute review.
At-risk detectionYou notice when the client complainsScore drop triggers structured recovery workflow
CAPA / recovery trackingSeparate sheet, manual, no remindersStructured plan, owner, milestones, audit trail
Client-visible portalNot possible. Email the spreadsheet.White-label portal, your logo and theirs
Salesforce syncCopy-paste. No automation.Native sync via custom objects
Multi-user collaborationShared file, version conflicts, no audit trailRole-based access, full history
CostFreePriced by accounts under management
Setup timeImmediate30-day pilot to configure and validate
You own the dataAlwaysAlways. EU hosted, ISO 27001 certified.
The real cost of Excel

What Excel costs that doesn’t show up on the invoice

Excel is free. The time it consumes, and the accounts it lets slip, are not.

⏳

QBR prep that takes a morning

The average commercial team spends 3–5 hours per account pulling data, updating slides, and chasing internal stakeholders before a quarterly review. At 20 accounts, that is 100 hours per quarter of prep work that adds no value to the client.

📈

Accounts that go at-risk silently

An Excel scorecard is only as current as the last time someone opened it. In practice, the first signal of a deteriorating relationship is often the client themselves saying they are considering alternatives. There is no early warning system.

🔀

The handoff problem

When an account manager leaves or a portfolio is restructured, institutional knowledge lives in a spreadsheet and someone’s head. The new owner starts from zero. EvaluationsHub gives them a documented history from day one.

💌

Action plans that live in email

When something goes wrong with an account, the recovery process is usually a flurry of emails, an ad-hoc meeting, and a promise to follow up. Three weeks later, no one knows who owns what. A structured CAPA changes that.

🔗

Salesforce that doesn’t reflect reality

Your CRM tracks deals and contacts. It does not track whether a client is actually healthy. Account health scores, QBR outcomes, and recovery status live in a spreadsheet that never makes it into Salesforce.

👥

No shared view with the client

The only way to share an account health view with a client is to email them a spreadsheet or build a PowerPoint. EvaluationsHub gives the client their own portal so they see the same data you do, in your brand.

✓  Stick with Excel when…

  • You manage fewer than 10 accounts total
  • You are still figuring out your scoring methodology
  • One account manager owns all relationships with no handoffs
  • You have no formal QBR process yet
  • Your accounts are stable and churn is not a concern

In that case, download our free Excel templates to get structured faster.

→  Move to EvaluationsHub when…

  • Your portfolio crosses 10–15 accounts and one person can no longer hold it all
  • You have had a surprise churn event that a better system would have caught
  • Your QBR process is inconsistent across the team or across clients
  • You are reporting to a CRO who wants a real-time view of account health
  • A key account manager is leaving and you need to preserve institutional knowledge
  • Your Salesforce is full of deal data but tells you nothing about client health
Side-by-side scenarios

The same situation, two different experiences

What actually happens at each step of account management, in Excel vs EvaluationsHub.

A client’s NPS drops from 8 to 5

Excel
You don’t know. The survey response sits in a separate tool. Someone might remember to update the scorecard. Probably not this week.
EvaluationsHub
Score updates automatically. Account surfaces as At Risk. Recovery workflow triggered in one click. Owner assigned.

QBR week arrives for a top-10 account

Excel
Open last quarter’s sheet. Manually update delivery data. Chase CS for sentiment scores. Rebuild the slide deck. 4 hours gone.
EvaluationsHub
Open the account. Health score, signal history, and last QBR actions are pre-populated. Prep takes 20 minutes.

A key account manager gives notice

Excel
Their accounts are in their spreadsheet and email. Knowledge transfer is a calendar full of handoff meetings. The new AM starts blind.
EvaluationsHub
Every signal, QBR note, action plan, and recovery history is in the platform. The new AM has full context from day one.

The CRO asks for a portfolio health update

Excel
Someone aggregates all the team’s sheets. Half are out of date. The report takes two hours and is already stale when presented.
EvaluationsHub
Dashboard is live. Every account, every score, every at-risk flag, in real time. Share the link or export in one click.

Start the 30-day pilot — 10 accounts, €30/month, 30-day money-back.

Configure your scoring model, run one QBR, and trigger one recovery workflow. If it doesn’t beat your current process, the Excel templates are still there.

Start the 30-day pilot →Book a 20-min demo first
FAQ

Common questions

Does EvaluationsHub replace Salesforce?
No. EvaluationsHub sits alongside Salesforce and writes account health data back into it via native custom objects. Your CRM stays the source of truth for contacts and deals. EvaluationsHub becomes the source of truth for account health, QBR history, and recovery plans.
Can I import my existing Excel scorecard data?
Yes. EvaluationsHub supports CSV and Excel import. You can bring your historical account scores in during the pilot so you don’t start from zero.
What if I want to keep using Excel alongside EvaluationsHub?
EvaluationsHub supports Excel and CSV export at any time. You always own your data. Some teams run both in parallel during an initial validation period, which is exactly what the 30-day pilot is designed for.
How long does it take to set up?
Most teams configure their scoring model, import their accounts, and run their first QBR within the first week of the pilot. There is no professional services fee for setup.
Is this only for large teams?
No. Teams with 10–15 key accounts often get the most immediate value. EvaluationsHub is priced by accounts under management, so smaller portfolios pay less.