Evnty vs. Excel and Google Sheets: when spreadsheets stop being enough

Spreadsheets are flexible, familiar and usually already paid for: Google Sheets is free with a Google account, and Excel comes with most Microsoft 365 plans. You can build any structure, share a file in seconds and edit it together. For a single event run by one or two people, a well-kept sheet is often enough.

The trouble starts when several people, a paid crew and real invoices come together:

• 01The same number lives in several places: a fee in the booking list, the budget and the payment plan
• 02Formulas break when someone inserts a row or copies a tab for the next edition
• 03Planned, committed and actual amounts only exist if someone builds and maintains them
• 04Shift plans live apart from availability, qualifications and the hours people have already worked
• 05Working-time rules are checked by eye, if at all
• 06Access is usually per file or tab, so fees and wages are hard to keep from people who need the rest

Evnty connects the steps. A confirmed booking creates its budget lines (artist booking), approved hours flow into labour costs (time tracking), and invoices from SevDesk or uploads land on the line they belong to (invoice matching). Working-time checks under German law run while you plan shifts and again on every clock-in (crew scheduling). Roles decide who sees fees, wages and staff data.

If you run one small event a year, plan alone, have no paid crew and no invoices to match, a spreadsheet costs less and does the job. Evnty pays off when several people plan together, when crew hours have to be recorded, or when you run more than a handful of events and want them comparable. The event budget guide works with either.

You set up the event, its stages and its budget lines in Evnty and keep the old sheet for reference. For the next edition you duplicate the event: stages, budget structure and the shift skeleton come along. Where partners still want a spreadsheet, budget, timetable and timesheets export as CSV.