Why Spreadsheets Fail During Busy Season (And What to Do Instead)

Spreadsheets are still the default during busy seasons for a simple reason: they’re familiar. When deadlines are tight and workloads spike, teams reach for the tools they already know. Most accountants have spent years inside spreadsheets. They know how to build them, adjust them, and troubleshoot them on the fly. Under pressure, that familiarity feels like a safety net despite the growing risk of accounting with spreadsheets during busy season.

But busy season has a way of revealing uncomfortable truths.

When more clients come online, more team members touch the same files, and more last-minute changes pile up, spreadsheets strain. Not because accountants are using them incorrectly, but because spreadsheets were never designed to support high-volume, compliance-heavy workflows that increase the risk of accounting with spreadsheets.

Spreadsheets make it difficult to track decisions and documentation, largely due to version control issues and manual accounting errors. 

In this blog, we’ll discuss accounting spreadsheets risk and what you can do to get around those dangers.

Key Takeaways

• Busy season exposes accounting spreadsheets risk under tight deadlines and heavy collaboration.

• Spreadsheets weren’t built to scale with compliance-heavy work or frequent changes.

• ASC 842 increases the likelihood of errors, rework, and review delays in spreadsheets.

• Manual spreadsheet processes slow teams down and contribute to burnout.

• Purpose-built tools reduce risk while keeping spreadsheets where they still make sense.

Why Are Spreadsheets Risky During Accounting Busy Season?

1. During busy seasons, work that feels manageable the rest of the year suddenly becomes compressed, collaborative, and unforgiving. Here are some of the hidden costs of spreadsheets during busy season that contribute directly to accounting spreadsheets risk:

2. Missing or Inconsistent Client Documentation: Clients send multiple versions of the same file or partial lease packets, delaying testing before it even starts. This is one of the most common drivers of accounting spreadsheet risk early in an engagement.
3. Delayed PBC Responses: Missing data can stall workpapers, reviews, and entire engagement timelines, no matter how well your internal team is organized.
4. Manual Accounting Errors Slowing Down Audits: Rekeying mismatched client exports is slow and error-prone.
5. Version-Control Chaos: Fast-moving teams create multiple versions of files, making it difficult to track the “right” one and easy to introduce mistakes. There’s no real version control when files are passed back and forth through email or shared drives. 
6. Staff Capacity Stretched Too Thin: With onboarding, complex engagements, and evolving standards, even high-performing teams hit their limits before busy season accounting begins.
7. Simultaneous Access: More people need access to the same files at the same time. While seniors and staff make updates, there’s less room to pause and double-check work.

This highlights how widespread accounting spreadsheet risk has become across firms of all sizes. Research estimates that up to 90% of all spreadsheets contain at least one significant error that can affect outcomes. On top of that, 48% of executives said there were either no usage controls or poor manual processes governing spreadsheet use.

Spreadsheets and ASC 842

ASC 842 significantly amplifies accounting spreadsheets risk.

Many CPA firms find it necessary to raise audit fees for clients because of the complexity of ASC 842 accounting in spreadsheets. However, if raising fees isn’t possible in a competitive market, it can hurt realization rates.

On top of that, as an auditor, it’s imperative to verify the accuracy of clients' lease accounting calculation spreadsheets and numbers; the controls must also not have any material weaknesses. When several people work in the same ASC 842 Excel template spreadsheet with no validation or security options, there are often version and calculation issues.

If the firm doesn’t have strong internal controls to ensure spreadsheet accuracy, it leads to more work during the audit. A single formula error is often where accounting spreadsheet risk becomes visible during an audit. When an error or issue is discovered during the audit, there will be rework, which means more time working in the spreadsheet.

What Types of Accounting Errors Are Most Common in Spreadsheets?

Under pressure, accounting spreadsheet risk shows up through predictable error patterns.

• Manual Rekeying and Copy-Paste Work: Data moves from one tab to another, then into a different file, and sometimes into several versions of the same file. Each handoff introduces risk, especially when changes are happening quickly and checks are rushed.

• Formulas: Lease modifications, remeasurements, or updated assumptions can disrupt formulas.

• Formatting and Structure: Two engagements might start from the same template but end up following slightly different logic. When review time comes around, it’s harder to tell what has been changed and what is consistent.

• ASC 842 Lease Accounting: Lease data involves multiple inputs, frequent changes, and calculations that need to remain consistent over time. Expectations for accuracy and documentation are high, and even small mistakes can ripple throughout the entire process.

The Real Impact on Firms During Busy Season

When spreadsheets start to crack, the consequences show up across the firm in ways that are hard to ignore, such as:

• Slower reviews
• Files moving back and forth with comments and questions
• Audit cycles stretching longer than planned
• Routine tasks turning into fire drills
• Compliance risk increasing
• Burnout growing due to repetitive rework

Taken together, these issues highlight how quickly accounting spreadsheet risk can cascade across reviews, audits, and staff capacity during busy seasons. You can spend hours tracking down the right version, validating changes, or rebuilding broken logic. This directly takes away from reevaluating client advisements or moving engagements forward.

When Should CPA Firms Stop Using Spreadsheets for Client Work?

Most firms outgrow them gradually, often without realizing it until busy season hits and the risk of accounting with spreadsheets becomes harder to contain.

There are a few clear signals that spreadsheets are no longer enough for certain types of client work.

• Spreadsheets start to create friction when multiple team members need to collaborate in real time. When it becomes harder to tell who updated what and when on a spreadsheet, it’s time to move on.

• Frequent client-driven changes are another warning sign. If your client is constantly making changes, you should stop using spreadsheets. Each update will force manual adjustments across tabs and files, increasing the chances that something gets missed or overwritten.

• Engagements tied to standards like ASC 842 demand consistency, accuracy, and support that holds up under review. Spreadsheets make it harder to maintain that level of confidence as complexity grows.

• If you need on-demand, audit-ready support, spreadsheets often fall short. Reconstructing logic or explaining changes across versions takes time that busy season doesn’t allow.

Spreadsheets still have a place for analysis, modeling, and one-off work. Once accounting spreadsheet risks start impacting collaboration, compliance, and timelines, firms need workflows built for busy season realities.

What Should Firms Use Instead of Spreadsheets During Busy Season?

Here are the tools firms should use instead of relying on spreadsheets this busy season to reduce accounting spreadsheets risk and improve consistency under pressure:

Modern Accounting Workflows

Modern accounting workflows are built around centralized systems rather than emailed files. Work lives in one place, so teams aren’t chasing attachments or wondering which version is current. Everyone sees the same data at the same time, which removes a major source of confusion during peak periods.

Standardization

When data and calculations follow the same structure across engagements, teams spend less time reorienting themselves and more time moving work forward. Automated logic helps maintain that consistency, even when inputs change. Updates flow through the system without breaking formulas or forcing manual accounting errors.

Collaboration

Clear ownership and shared visibility help reduce accounting spreadsheets risk when multiple people need to move quickly without losing accuracy. Reviews become more straightforward because the underlying logic is easier to follow and explain.

Lease Accounting and Data Extraction Software

Lease accounting software is built to handle the complexity that spreadsheets struggle to maintain, significantly reducing accounting spreadsheets risk during busy season. Calculations stay consistent even when leases change or remeasurements are required. Instead of manually updating formulas and reconciling multiple schedules, teams can rely on systems designed to maintain accuracy and produce audit-ready outputs without constant rework.

Data extraction software solves a different, but equally costly, problem. Rather than rekeying client data or cleaning up inconsistent exports, firms can pull standardized information directly from source systems. That reduces manual data entry, improves consistency across engagements, and shortens the time between receiving client data and starting real work.

Crunchafi’s Lease Accounting and Data Extraction solutions are purpose-built for these exact challenges. They don’t replace spreadsheets entirely, but they take the most fragile, time-consuming parts of busy season work out of Excel and into systems designed for busy seasons.

Can Automation Reduce Spreadsheet-Related Audit Issues?

The biggest gains of automation come from reducing the most fragile parts of spreadsheet-based workflows.

By limiting manual data entry, automation lowers the risk of copy-paste mistakes and manual accounting errors. Calculations run the same way every time, even when inputs change. Studies indicate that intelligent automation may lower data entry errors by as much as 70%. That consistency carries across clients and engagements, which makes reviews easier and reduces back-and-forth during audits. 

Automation also improves how work is documented. Instead of piecing together support from multiple files and versions, teams can rely on clearer audit trails that show where data came from and how calculations were performed. That transparency builds confidence during review.

Lease accounting calculations and reporting are a natural fit for automation, given the volume of data and compliance expectations tied to standards like ASC 842. Data extraction and standardization are another high-impact area, especially when client information comes from different systems and formats.

At its best, automation removes busywork. It supports accountants by handling repeatable tasks more reliably, so teams can spend their time reviewing, advising, and making decisions that actually require human expertise.

Spreadsheets Aren’t the Enemy. Overreliance Is.

Spreadsheets still have a place in accounting work. They’re useful for analysis, quick modeling, and situations where flexibility matters more than structure.

Busy season is different.

Peak workloads demand systems that can handle scale, support real collaboration, and hold up under compliance pressure. When spreadsheets are pushed beyond what they were built to support, the cracks become harder to manage and easier to miss.

That’s where modern, purpose-built tools come in. Crunchafi’s solutions are designed to work alongside spreadsheets. By centralizing lease accounting and streamlining data extraction, Crunchafi helps firms reduce the manual work that makes busy season harder than it needs to be.

For firms feeling the strain of spreadsheet-heavy workflows during peak periods, the path forward starts with identifying the areas under the most pressure, like lease accounting and data-heavy engagements, and supporting those workflows with systems built for accuracy and audit readiness. 

If you’re interested in learning more about Crunchafi’s Data Extraction and Lease Accounting software for busy season, schedule a demo today!