Get the business out of spreadsheets
Scattered workbooks become one system your team can trust. The data goes in once, the reporting builds itself, and nobody rebuilds the month by hand.
The spreadsheets stop being the system of record. The numbers live in one place, and it is the place everyone actually uses.
The monthly rebuild goes away. The report is current when you open it, because it reads the system rather than being assembled by hand.
Most Foundation work runs in weeks rather than quarters, though we scope it properly before committing to anything.
Documented and handed over properly, so adding a report or changing a field does not mean calling us first.
What a Foundation build involves
Not every engagement needs all of it. We look first, then tell you which parts are worth doing and which you can leave alone for now.
Spreadsheets become a database
The workbooks the business runs on become a proper system, with the validation and rules that stop bad data from getting in to begin with.
The repetitive steps get automated
Re-keying between systems, the monthly assembly, the same three exports every Friday. Automated, so they stop taking anyone's afternoon.
Data pulled together and cleaned up
Records from several places merged, duplicates resolved, and one version agreed as the one that counts.
Reporting you can open and trust
The numbers you run the business on, current, in one view, without anyone having to build it first.
Written down as we go
The build is documented while it happens, not afterward from memory. Whoever opens it next can follow it.
Handed over properly
Your team is taught the system well enough to use it and maintain it without us in the room.
However it is scoped, the order is the same: we look, we recommend, then we build and run it. See how every engagement runs →
Is Foundation the right place to begin?
Usually yes, if this sounds familiar
- Critical information lives across a pile of workbooks
- People spend hours re-keying and reconciling by hand
- The same numbers disagree depending on who you ask
- You are ready to grow but the manual work will not scale
Somewhere else, if it does not
Your systems each work well enough on their own, and the pain is getting them to talk to each other.
Start with IntegrationOff-the-shelf software cannot be bent far enough, and you need something shaped around your actual operation.
Start with Custom SystemsQuestions we get about Foundation work
- What does moving from spreadsheets to a database mean?
- It means the information the business runs on stops living in workbooks that anyone can overwrite, and starts living in one system with rules about what is allowed in. Spreadsheets can stay as a way to look at the data if your team likes working that way. What changes is that they are no longer the place the data is kept.
- How long does a Foundation project take?
- Most Foundation work runs in weeks rather than quarters, but it depends on how many places your data currently lives and what condition it is in. We look at that before quoting, so the timeline is agreed at the start rather than estimated as we go.
- Do we have to change how our team works?
- As little as possible. We follow the work through your team as it happens now and build around it. Where a process does have to change, it is because that process was causing the problem, and we tell you so before the build rather than after it.
- What happens to our existing spreadsheets and the data in them?
- The data is migrated, cleaned and de-duplicated into the new system, and the original files are kept. Where two workbooks disagree, we bring it to you and agree which version counts. That decision belongs to the business, not to us.
- Will we depend on AIY Global to change anything afterward?
- No. The system is documented and your team is trained to use and maintain it, including adding a report or changing a field. Many clients keep us on to run it because they would rather not think about it, but that should be a choice rather than something the build made unavoidable.
- Do you work with businesses outside Chicago?
- Yes. AIY Global is based in Chicago and works on site with businesses across the Chicago area. Foundation work is largely remote in any case, so we build for clients elsewhere in the United States too. The practical difference is whether we can be in the room for training and handover.
- How much does a Foundation project cost?
- It is quoted per project rather than published as a rate, because a build for one team is not the same job as one spanning several. You get the scope and the cost in writing after we have looked and before anything is built.
Bring us the worst one
Show us the workbooks the business depends on and what they cost you every month, and we'll tell you where we'd start.