Excel vs Google Sheets for small teams: which one to use?
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Open on YouTube (opens in a new tab)For an individual, the choice between Excel and Google Sheets often comes down to preference. For a small team, a few practical factors usually decide it.
Where Google Sheets wins
Real-time collaboration is Sheets’ strongest advantage. Multiple people can edit the same file at the same time in a browser, see each other’s cursors, and leave comments — no check-in/check-out, no conflicting versions. Sharing is a link. If your team is not on Microsoft 365, there is nothing to install.
Sheets also has IMPORTRANGE (pull live data from another spreadsheet), QUERY (SQL-like filtering and aggregation), and tight integration with Google Forms, Docs, and App Script.
Where Excel wins
Power and depth. Power Query, Power Pivot, complex VBA automation, advanced charting, and a larger function library are all exclusive to Excel. If the workbook needs to handle large datasets (hundreds of thousands of rows), complex modelling, or heavy automation, Excel is faster and more capable.
Excel’s conditional formatting and charting options are also more complete, and the desktop app handles large files better than any browser-based tool.
The one question that decides it
Where does the data come from, and who needs to edit it?
If the team is remote, works in different tools, and needs to edit a shared tracker together in real time: Sheets. If the team runs heavy analysis on large datasets or needs automation and power query: Excel.
Many small teams use both — Sheets for shared tracking and lightweight forms, Excel for the serious analysis that happens downstream.
Go deeper with this skill
Build a confident foundation by practicing navigation, data entry, formatting, references, and simple calculations together. For this article, the goal is to practice: A practical comparison for small teams deciding between Excel and Google Sheets — where each tool wins, and the one question that usually decides it.
Practice workbook setup
Create a starter workbook with one sheet for raw practice data, one sheet for formatted output, and one sheet for notes.
Practice workflow
- Enter a small table manually so you practice rows, columns, headers, and basic formatting.
- Use simple formulas such as totals, averages, and percentages before moving to advanced functions.
- Practice copying formulas while watching how relative and absolute references change.
- Format the result for readability, then remove any formatting that does not help the reader.
Quality checks
- Numbers are stored as numbers, dates as dates, and labels as text.
- Formulas copy correctly down the table without broken references.
- The final sheet can be understood without needing the practice notes.
Common mistakes
- Typing numbers with currency symbols or spaces that turn them into text.
- Copying a formula before checking whether references should stay fixed.
- Using formatting to cover unclear labels or inconsistent structure.
Next actions
- Rebuild the same workbook without looking at the tutorial.
- Turn the range into a table and repeat the formulas using table headers.
Formula focus: even if this workflow is not formula-heavy, add one check cell that confirms the final output still matches the source data.
