The manual stack vs Atellier, honestly
Spreadsheets and QuickBooks are good tools. Here's where the seams between them cost you — including the one row they win.
| Capability | Atellier | Spreadsheets + QB |
|---|---|---|
| One record per jobQuote, deal, factory order, install and invoice linked — not five tabs in five files | ||
| Formula-based quotingPricing built from your real material and labor costs, versioned and shared by the whole team | Manual | |
| Quote → invoice without re-keyingThe numbers flow forward; nothing is typed twice (or typed wrong) | ||
| Production schedulingStage changes create factory orders and schedules automatically | ||
| Job status without phone callsCustomer portal shows live order status — no 'just checking in' emails | ||
| Commission tracking reps trustCalculated from the same record as the invoice — no end-of-month disputes | Manual | |
| Invoicing & ARQuickBooks does this well — and Atellier does it on the job record itself | ||
| Who-changed-what historyActivity log on every record vs. 'final_v3_REAL.xlsx' | ||
| Works when someone quitsThe process lives in the system, not in one person's spreadsheet habits | ||
| Free to startSpreadsheets win on sticker price — until you count the hours |
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc.; this page is for informational comparison only.
Why shops graduate from the spreadsheet system
Stop paying the re-keying tax
Quote to deal to factory order to invoice, with the numbers flowing forward automatically. The hours you spend copying between files go back to billable work.
One source of truth
When the job lives in one record, sales, production and finance stop working from three different versions of it.
The process survives turnover
Spreadsheet systems live in one person's head. Atellier's pipelines, pricing formulas and automations belong to the business.
Frequently asked questions
We run on spreadsheets and QuickBooks today. Why change?
Spreadsheets and QuickBooks each do their job — the cost is the gap between them. Every quote re-keyed into an invoice, every job status chased by phone, every commission reconciled by hand is shop time you're not billing. Atellier keeps the entire job on one record, so the data flows instead of being copied.
Does Atellier replace QuickBooks?
Atellier handles invoicing, AR/AP and commission tracking natively, on the same record as the deal and the production order. Many shops keep QuickBooks for accounting and taxes while running day-to-day quoting, jobs and invoicing in Atellier.
How long does it take to move off spreadsheets?
Pricing formulas, pipeline stages and statuses are configured in Settings, not code, and the team helps migrate clients, deals and price lists during onboarding. Most shops run their first real job through Atellier in the first week.
What does the manual way actually cost?
A shop doing 25 jobs a month that saves two hours per job at a $75/hr shop rate recovers about $45,000 a year in billable time — before counting fewer re-quotes, missed follow-ups and commission disputes. The ROI calculator on the pricing page runs your own numbers.