A spreadsheet is fine for three or four renewal dates that only you look after. Beyond that — and especially with a team — a dedicated expiry tracker like Trackords saves hours of manual checking, prevents the “nobody told me” failure and adds a real audit trail. Both are free; the difference is what each one is built for.
Side by side
A spreadsheet stores dates. Trackords acts on them — colour-coding urgency, filtering by type and emailing the right people before each deadline.
| Capability | Spreadsheet (Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers) | Trackords |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, or included in your office suite | Free, no credit card |
| Email reminders before expiry | Manual — needs Apps Script or a Power Automate flow | Built in: up to three per record, days before or a fixed date |
| Reminder recipients | One recipient at best | The whole workspace or the record owner, plus an extra email per record |
| Multi-user editing | Yes in Google Sheets, risky with Excel files | Yes, with three roles: admin, editor, viewer |
| Permissions | Per file or sheet | Per workspace and role, enforced on the server |
| File attachments per row | Awkward — links to a drive only | Native, stored privately outside the web root |
| History of changes | Limited revision history | Audit log with user and time, plus a 30-day trash |
| Record types & fields | Columns for everything | Your own types, each with its own fields |
| Sort by next expiry | Manual sort | Default sort with urgency colours, board, timeline and calendar |
| Payments | A “paid” column | Mark as paid with receipt, Completed page, repeating payments |
| Calendar integration | Manual | Live calendar feed for Google, Outlook and Apple |
| CSV import & export | Native | Import wizard with preview and undo; export with filters |
| Onboarding new teammates | They have to learn your sheet | Invite by email with a role, done in 30 seconds |
| Time to set up | 30–60 minutes for a usable template | Under 2 minutes |
Honest take
Spreadsheets are not evil. There are situations where a sheet is genuinely the better tool.
When Trackords wins
Migration
Sign up and verify your email. No credit card.
Add a type for each kind of record in your sheet — or start from a template — with fields for the columns you care about.
In Excel or Google Sheets, export the sheet as a CSV file.
The import wizard matches your columns to Trackords fields and shows a preview with any problems per row. Fix, then import. Undo is one click.
Reminders now fire on the schedule of each record — up to three per record — with no further work.
FAQ
Yes. You can export your records to CSV at any time, so a spreadsheet copy is always one click away.
No. The import wizard lets you match each column to a field, and common names such as "Expiry date" or "Owner" are matched automatically.
Most people add their first record in under a minute. If you can fill in a form, you can use Trackords.
Migration takes 5 minutes. Reminders start the moment you save.
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