Kanso vs Spreadsheets & shared drives
Kanso vs Spreadsheets
Spreadsheets can get you to a first certificate. This page is about where they start to cost you at audit time.
To be fair
What Spreadsheets & shared drives gets right
- Everyone already knows how to use them. No training, no license to approve, no waiting on IT.
- They will model any register, matrix or log exactly the way you want it, on day one.
- For a small team working toward a first ISO 9001 certificate, well-kept spreadsheets and a document folder do work. Plenty of companies certify this way.
Where it stops helping
Nobody is sure which copy is current
CAPA_final_v3_REALLY_final.xlsx lives in several inboxes and a shared drive, with no record of who changed what or when.
When an auditor asks for the controlled version and its approval history, clause 7.5 is where a spreadsheet QMS gets its finding.
The analysis stops at a chart
A spreadsheet can chart a trend. A control chart with run rules, an MSA or a designed experiment takes add-ins or another tool, and the result is pasted back in.
That analysis is what a Six Sigma project runs on.
Nothing reminds anyone
The sheet holds the review dates and the CAPA due dates, and someone has to remember to look.
One busy month is enough to miss a document review.
What Kanso does differently
Every controlled document carries its versions, approval route, signatures and read tracking. CAPAs, audits and objectives are records with owners and due dates, and Watchtower flags the ones that are slipping.
The analysis runs in the same place as the records: SPC with Nelson rules inside the project, and a Data Lab where you can query the data in SQL, Python or R.
Records link to each other by a named relation, so a clause can show its evidence and the chain behind it without anyone assembling a folder.
How they compare
Version control and history
We leadSpreadsheets & shared drives
File names and separate copies. No dependable record of who changed what.
Kanso
Versions, approvals, signatures and read tracking on every controlled document.
Analysis
We leadSpreadsheets & shared drives
Formulas and charts. SPC, MSA and designed experiments need add-ins or another tool.
Kanso
SPC, MSA, FMEA and DOE inside the project, and SQL, Python and R in the Data Lab.
Follow-through
We leadSpreadsheets & shared drives
Dates are stored, and someone has to remember to check them.
Kanso
Watchtower checks reviews, owners and deadlines and raises what is slipping.
Cost and familiarity
They leadSpreadsheets & shared drives
Free, instant and familiar to everyone.
Kanso
A system to learn and a subscription to approve.
Audit evidence
We leadSpreadsheets & shared drives
Spread across files and folders, and gathered by hand before the audit.
Kanso
Per-clause evidence reports gather the records tagged to a clause and what they link to.
Bottom line
Spreadsheets are a fine way to reach a first certificate. Kanso is for when the audits, the analysis and the follow-up have outgrown a folder of files.