Grafta vs Excel & spreadsheets
A well-built spreadsheet has run thousands of Irish trade businesses, and if yours is working, fair play — it costs nothing extra and it does what you tell it. But most spreadsheet quoting happens on a laptop at the kitchen table after a full day on the tools, and that's where it starts costing you. Here's a straight comparison so you can decide if it's time to change.
Grafta and Excel, side by side
| Grafta | Excel | |
|---|---|---|
| Where you do the work | On your phone — in the van, on site, one-handed | On a laptop, usually at the kitchen table after tea |
| Building a quote | Speak the job — itemised draft with labour and materials split | Copy last month's file, retype every line, hope the formulas held |
| Getting it to the customer | Branded PDF by email with an accept-online link | Save as PDF, attach, send — every step by hand |
| Acceptance | Customer taps Accept in their browser — recorded, and you're notified | A reply email if you're lucky; often just a nod on the phone |
| VAT | 13.5%, 23% or 0% set per line; totals always add up | Formulas you maintain yourself — one broken cell and the total is quietly wrong |
| Chasing money | Overdue invoices flagged, with a ready-written reminder to copy or send by WhatsApp | A "who owes me" tab you have to remember to keep honest |
| Your records | Customers, quotes, invoices and payments in one place — EU-hosted, exportable | Files scattered across folders, old laptops and sent emails |
| Cost | Subscription — flat price, free trial first | Effectively free if you already have Excel |
What Excel does well
- Price — if you already have Excel or use a free spreadsheet, quoting costs you nothing extra and there's no new subscription.
- Flexibility — a spreadsheet will calculate anything you can dream up: odd pricing models, what-if margins, your own job costing. No app matches that freedom.
- No lock-in — it's your file, on your machine, in a format every accountant in the country can open.
Where Grafta is different
- Built for where the pricing actually happens: speak the job into your phone on site and the itemised quote is drafted before you're back in the van — no laptop, no late-night session.
- The arithmetic can't quietly break: VAT at 13.5%, 23% or 0% per line and totals that always add up — there's no formula for a stray keystroke to delete.
- Acceptance on the record: the customer opens a link, sees the itemised quote with your branding, and taps Accept. You're notified and the yes is recorded, not remembered.
- Chasing money is a list, not a memory: overdue invoices are flagged and Grafta writes the polite reminder for you to copy or send by WhatsApp.
- One source of truth: customers, quotes, invoices, payments and receipts together — EU-hosted, with a full export from Settings whenever you want it.
Stick with the spreadsheet if you only price a handful of jobs a year, you're happy maintaining your own formulas, and the evening at the laptop isn't costing you work. Honestly — it can be enough.
Pick Grafta if you quote every week, want to price jobs standing in them, and you're done with formula errors, lost files and chasing money from memory. Try Grafta free.
Common questions
Can I move my spreadsheet records into Grafta?
Yes — start a free trial and add your customers (import help is available — contact support). Most people keep the old spreadsheet as an archive and start fresh in Grafta from the next quote on, so there's no big migration day.
My VAT formulas took years to get right — does Grafta really handle Irish VAT?
Yes. Every line item carries its own rate — 13.5%, 23% or 0% — and the totals are calculated for you. Because labour and materials are itemised, the two-thirds rule is easy to sanity-check before you send. Nothing to maintain, nothing to break when you insert a row.
Is a spreadsheet not enough for a small operation?
It genuinely can be. If you send a few invoices a year to people who pay on time, a tidy spreadsheet does the job. The crossover comes when quoting is weekly: the retyping, the chasing and the laptop evenings start costing you real work — and that's the point where Grafta pays for itself.
This comparison reflects publicly available information as of July 2026 and our honest read of both approaches. Features and pricing change — always check current details, and if you spot something outdated here, tell us and we'll correct it.
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