Grantledger vs spreadsheets
Spreadsheets are flexible, free and familiar, and they get many funders a long way. The question is where they stop working as volume and accountability grow.
Grantledger keeps the simplicity but removes the re-keying, the version anxiety and the missing audit trail, and adds the UK essentials spreadsheets cannot provide.
| Feature | Grantledger | spreadsheets |
|---|---|---|
| Single source of truth | One record from intake to publishing. | Data copied between form, sheet, email and finance. |
| Audit trail | Tamper-evident, one-click verify. | No built-in audit trail; cells can be changed without a trace. |
| UK due diligence | Automatic at intake. | Checked by hand, across browser tabs. |
| Reporting and reminders | Scheduled reports with human-approved reminder emails. | Tracked and chased manually. |
| 360Giving publishing | One-click, validated. | Annual manual export and reshaping. |
| Cost | Flat-rate plans. | Free software, but costly in staff time as volume grows. |
Common questions
We only run a few grants a year. Do we need to move off spreadsheets?
Maybe not yet. If you have hit version-control problems, skip due diligence when busy, or dread assembling history for a board or audit, that is the signal it is time.
How we compareThis is our own good-faith comparison, written from publicly available information and our own product as of June 2026. Product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners; a mention here is not affiliation or endorsement. Capabilities change — if anything is out of date or inaccurate, tell us at hello@getgrantledger.com and we will correct or remove it.