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The outgrowing spreadsheets guide for food and drink brands
Last updated: 16 October 2026
You've outgrown spreadsheets when keeping them right takes more time than the work they track, or when a mistake in one reaches a customer. For most challenger food and drink brands, that happens somewhere between the second retailer listing and the fiftieth wholesale account. This guide helps you score yourself, decide what to fix first and plan the move.
Why do food and drink brands outgrow spreadsheets?
Spreadsheets are brilliant at the start. They're free, everyone knows how to use them and you can build exactly what you need in an afternoon. Most food brands should start on them.
The trouble comes with scale. More customers bring more order formats. More SKUs bring more price lists. More people means more copies of the same sheet. And food adds its own complications: batch codes, use-by dates, cases vs units, retailer product codes and depots identified by GLN (Global Location Number).
Spreadsheets also go wrong more often than they feel. Field audits found errors in 94% of the spreadsheets studied (Panko, 2015). In a food business, those errors turn into short deliveries, wrong prices, missing batch codes and margins you can't explain.
None of that means you've done anything wrong. It means you've grown.
What are the 10 signs you've outgrown spreadsheets?
Tick each one that's true for your business today. Score one point for each.
Your score: 0 out of 10
EDI from one retailer, PDFs from another, spreadsheets from a wholesaler, emails from independents, Shopify on top. Every format needs its own manual routine.
A founder's sheet, an ops sheet and a warehouse sheet, all tracking the same stock or orders, none quite agreeing. People keep their own copy because they don't trust the main one.
If you can't print the batch code and use-by on every delivery note, you can't trace a case once it leaves your warehouse.
Every day between dispatch and invoice is a day your cash sits with your customer. Late invoices also tend to drift from what you actually shipped.
If one person going on holiday means orders slow down or stop, your process lives in their head, not in a system.
You know roughly what a SKU costs, but not what the last batch cost, or why your margin moved last month. → What is COGS software for food brands?
Someone works out material needs from a sales forecast, converts them into supplier pack sizes and types up the PO, every time.
Your sheet, your 3PL's figures and your accounts give three different stock numbers, and nobody knows which one's right.
"Which customers received batch L2391?" or "Why was this delivery short?" turned into an afternoon of digging.
Someone does the orders, invoices and stock updates after hours, because the day's full of everything else. We wrote about this one in The 11pm spreadsheet.
What does your score mean?
- Score 0 to 3
Spreadsheets are still earning their keep.
Your setup works for now. Tighten it rather than replace it: keep one master product list, lock the formulas, give each sheet a single owner and write down how orders flow from inbox to invoice. Score yourself again whenever you add a new retailer or a new 3PL, because that's when things tend to tip.
- Score 4 to 6
You're at the tipping point.
You're spending real hours keeping the sheets in line, and the risk is growing faster than the business. Start with orders (see the next section), because that's where most of the hours sit. Begin preparing your data now, even before you choose a system. It's the slowest part of any move.
- Score 7 to 10
Your spreadsheets are running you.
You're carrying operational risk every day, and someone's paying for it with their evenings. A retailer is likely to notice before long, through a short delivery, a wrong invoice or a traceability question you can't answer quickly. Prioritise the move. Use the ROI calculator to put a number on the hours, and the 30-60-90 day plan below to sequence the work.
What should you fix first?
Fix things in the order the data flows: orders → stock → costs → planning. Each step relies on the one before it being clean.
Why start with orders?
Every other number in the business starts with an order. Orders also take up most of the manual hours, and order mistakes are the ones your customers see. Clean up how orders come in (capture, matching to customer product codes, price checks, delivery notes, invoicing) and you free up time for everything else. → What is order management software for food brands?
Why is stock second?
Once orders flow cleanly, you can trust what's going out. Then you can track what's left: by batch, by use-by date and by location, with FEFO (first expired, first out) allocation and minimum shelf-life rules per customer. That gives you traceability and stops you shipping short-dated stock to a retailer who'll reject it.
Why do costs come third?
Batch costing needs clean stock data. When each lot carries the price you paid, and each production run records what it used, you can see the real cost of each batch and the real margin on each customer. Try to do costs before stock and you'll be costing guesses.
Why leave planning until last?
Demand planning and supplier POs need a few months of clean order history and accurate stock. Plan from messy data and you'll order the wrong amount with great confidence.
How should you prepare your data before you switch?
Data prep is the slowest part of any move, and you can start it today, whichever system you pick. Here's what you'll need.
Product list with GTINs.
Customer product codes.
Price lists.
Depots with GLNs.
Bills of materials.
Opening stock by batch.
Two extras that save time later: your supplier list (pack sizes, prices, lead times, minimum order quantities and quantity per pallet) and your customer list exactly as it appears in Xero, so invoices land on the right contacts.
Yes, it's a lot of spreadsheets. It's the last time you'll need them.
What should you ask any software vendor?
Bring these questions to every demo. Ask the vendor to show you each answer on your own data, not a slide.
Step 1
Can you read my real POs?
Bring your messiest PDF and an independent's free-text email, and watch what happens.
Step 2
Do you match my customers' own product codes?
Or does someone have to translate them first?
Step 3
How do you handle cases vs units?
Per customer, per product, on invoices as well as orders.
Step 4
Can you allocate by batch with FEFO and shelf-life rules?
And print the batch code and use-by on the delivery note?
Step 5
What connects out of the box?
Ask specifically about Xero, Shopify, your EDI provider and your 3PL's system.
Step 6
How do you cost a batch?
From actual lot prices, or a fixed standard cost?
Step 7
Can I see the AI's work before it acts?
What do you show me, and what happens when it gets something wrong?
Step 8
Who does the setup, and how long does it take?
Who loads the products, customers, price lists and depots?
Step 9
What does onboarding involve?
Is it included, or a separate paid package?
Step 10
Who else like us uses it?
Ask to speak to a brand of a similar size, with similar channels.
We've put a fuller version of this checklist, plus side-by-side comparisons, on our compare hub.
What does a 30-60-90 day migration plan look like?
This plan follows the orders → stock → costs → planning order. Your timings will depend on how many customers, formats and SKUs you have, and how clean your data is when you start.
Days 1 to 30: get orders flowing
- Finish the product list, customer product codes, price lists and depot list.
- Connect your accounting software, your Shopify store, your EDI provider and your 3PL.
- Run new orders through the new system alongside your spreadsheet for two weeks. Compare every order.
- Switch invoicing over once the two match.
- Pick a cut-over date, ideally at the start of a week, and make the old order sheet read-only from that day.
Days 31 to 60: stock, batches and invoicing
- Do a full stock count by batch, use-by and location, including stock at your 3PL and co-packer.
- Load opening stock and set your allocation rules: FEFO or FIFO, and minimum shelf life per customer.
- Turn on batch codes and use-by dates on delivery notes.
- Reconcile stock against your 3PL every week for the first month.
- Retire the stock spreadsheet once three weekly checks in a row agree.
Days 61 to 90: costs, margins and planning
- Load your bills of materials, including wastage, co-man fees and any inputs your co-packer supplies.
- Record production runs as they happen, with actual output and usage.
- Check your first batch costs against your old costing sheet, and find out why they differ.
- Start using margin by SKU and by customer in your weekly review.
- Build your first supplier POs from demand, rather than by hand.
What makes a migration go well?
One owner.
A real parallel run.
A hard cut-over.
Your messiest customer first.
How does Pesto fit in?
We built Pesto for exactly this move. It reads every PO, whatever the format, matches it to your customer's own product codes and prices, picks the right batch, raises the delivery note and invoices in Xero. Stock, batch costing, supplier POs and margins live in the same place.
- Order management: orders from PDF, email, EDI and Shopify, matched and checked.
- Inventory: batch and use-by tracking, FEFO, shelf-life rules and traceability.
- COGS & margins: bills of materials, actual lot costing and margin by customer.
- Demand planning & procurement: from demand to supplier POs that fill a truck.
- Invoicing & collections: Xero invoices from what you dispatched.
Want to know what the move is worth first? Try the ROI calculator.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if I've outgrown spreadsheets?
Count the signs above. If four or more are true, your spreadsheets are costing you real hours and adding risk. If seven or more are true, a customer will probably notice before long.
Should I fix orders or stock first?
Orders. Every other number starts with an order, orders take up most of the manual hours, and order mistakes are the ones customers see. Stock comes next, once you trust what's going out.
Do I need an ERP, or just better spreadsheets?
If you scored 0 to 3, better spreadsheets will do for now. If you scored 4 or more, the problem is usually the number of formats, people and handoffs, and better spreadsheets don't fix that.
How long does it take to move off spreadsheets?
It depends on your customers, formats and data quality. Most of the time goes on preparing data, which you can start today. The 30-60-90 day plan above gives a typical sequence.
What data do I need to prepare?
A product list with GTINs, each customer's product codes, price lists per customer, depots with GLNs, bills of materials and opening stock by batch. Add your supplier and customer lists if you can.
Can I keep using Xero?
Yes. Most food brands keep Xero for accounting and add an operations system on top. Pesto creates invoices in Xero from what you actually dispatched and syncs their status back.
See Pesto running on your own orders.
Bring a real PO, your messiest one. We'll show you what Pesto does with it in 30 minutes.
Book a demo