Alexis Kestler
Excel is an invaluable tool for small and medium-sized businesses. With the right add-ins, it can become even more powerful and help SMBs streamline operations, gain insights, and make better decisions.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explore 12 of the most useful Excel add-ins for small and medium businesses across industries like finance, marketing, operations, and more.
What Are Excel Add-Ins?
Excel add-ins are plugins created by third-party developers that add extra functionality to Excel. They allow users to access new tools, automate tasks, visualize data in new ways, and more – all without leaving the familiar Excel interface.
Add-ins are easy to install and use. You can browse and add them right from the Excel toolbar. Once added, they appear as tabs, buttons, or panels within Excel.
Add-ins range from niche, industry-specific tools to more general-purpose utilities. They can help SMBs with everything from accounting and budgeting to sales reporting and data visualization.
Below are 12 of the top Excel add-ins for small and medium businesses:
1. Power Pivot – Data Modeling and Analysis
Power Pivot is an add-in from Microsoft that enhances Excel‘s built-in data modeling features. With it, SMBs can import large datasets from various sources, create relationships between them, and perform in-depth analysis.
Key features include:
- Importing data from external sources like SQL databases
- Combining data from multiple tables into a data model
- Creating relationships between data from different sources
- Adding calculated columns and measures using DAX formulas
- Building PivotTables and PivotCharts based on the data model
- Sharing data model workbooks on SharePoint for collaboration
For SMBs, Power Pivot is useful for tasks like sales data analysis, inventory reporting, financial modeling, and more. The ability to consolidate data from various sources makes it easy to get a unified view.
2. Supermetrics – Marketing Data Import
Supermetrics is a handy add-in for marketers and analysts who need to import data from multiple sources into Excel. With a few clicks, it pulls data from platforms like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Google Analytics, etc. and populates Excel.
This saves teams hours of effort compared to manually exporting and copying data. The add-in keeps data fresh by allowing automated, scheduled refreshes. Users can also get custom reports emailed to their inbox.
For marketing agencies and consumer businesses, Supermetrics is invaluable for tracking campaigns, monitoring engagement metrics, analyzing sales funnels, and measuring ROI across marketing channels.
3. Power Query – Data Transformation
Power Query, part of Microsoft‘s Power BI suite, enhances how users can discover, connect to, and transform data in Excel. It allows SMBs to:
- Easily find and query corporate data sources
- Import data from files, databases, web pages, etc.
- Reshape, clean, and transform imported data
- Merge disparate data sets into unified tables
- Publish reusable data queries for organization-wide use
Analysts, BI users, and power Excel users can benefit from Power Query to automate the often tedious process of importing and preparing data for analysis. It works across Windows, Mac, and the web.
4. ASAP Utilities – Productivity Tools
ASAP Utilities packs dozens of power user tools to enhance everyday Excel use. It has utilities to manipulate tables, format cells, manage workbooks, audit sheets, analyze data, and much more.
Some handy utilities include:
- Formatting cells, rows, and tables for better visibility
- One-click access to recently used workbooks and files
- Randomizing data for sampling and analysis
- Conditional formatting based on cell values
- Masking confidential data before sharing sheets
- Converting table rows into columns (and vice versa) for reporting
SMBs like ASAP Utilities for the time savings. Teams can create and update reports faster, analyze data more efficiently, and automate repetitive tasks.
5. Money in Excel – Finance Tracking
Money in Excel, launched by Microsoft in 2020, is an add-in tailored for personal finance management. It allows linking bank, credit card, loan, and other accounts to populate transaction data in Excel.
Users can then analyze spending patterns, budgeting, investments, liabilities, and net worth in Excel. Money in Excel provides templatized reports, charts, and financial tips based on linked account data.
For finance teams in SMBs, it can be a handy tool for tasks like budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and more – leveraging the familiar Excel interface.
6. Accounting Suite – Accounting Tools
Accounting Suite from Databison is a bundle of 17 add-ins catering to various accounting tasks like:
- Expense reporting
- Cash flow analysis
- Bank reconciliation
- Audit tracking
- Amortization calculations
- Depreciation tracking
- Tax planning
It provides easy-to-use utilities for formatting financial statements, automating month-end close, performing variance analysis, and more.
For SMB accounting teams, the Accounting Suite can help enhance productivity. It reduces time spent on routine tasks and minimizes manual errors.
7. Lucidchart – Data Visualization
Lucidchart allows users to create professional diagrams and flowcharts from within Excel and other Office apps. SMBs can visualize processes, structures, systems, and workflows using Lucidchart‘s drag-and-drop interface and template library.
Key features include:
- 100+ diagram types like flowcharts, org charts, floor plans, and more
- 2000+ visual templates
- Drag-and-drop shapes and connectors
- Integrations with Office, G-Suite, Visio, and more
- Team collaboration capabilities
- Export charts as images, PDFs, or Office docs
Operations, process excellence, and business analysts can benefit from visualizing processes and workflows using Lucidchart. It helps align teams and identify improvement areas through data-backed visualization.
8. Kutools for Excel – Productivity Suite
Kutools for Excel packs 200+ utilities to help SMBs enhance productivity, format data, automate reporting, clean data, and more.
Some useful features are:
- Importing data from web pages, emails, PDFs
- Identifying and removing duplicates
- Combining multiple workbooks into one
- Formatting cells, tables, charts
- Redacting confidential info
- Generating reports and dashboards
- Text sorting, formatting, and manipulation
For teams who live in Excel daily, Kutools can help save hours of effort on mundane tasks. Finance, sales, marketing can all derive value from the wide range of utilities.
9. HiBob – HR Management
HiBob integrates Excel with its HRIS system for small and medium businesses. Users can:
- Update employee data in Excel and sync it with HiBob
- Fetch employee data from HiBob into Excel reports
- Analyze trends like turnover, absences, performance
- Build custom reports and dashboards for HR metrics
For SMB HR managers, HiBob eliminatesdouble data entry between Excel and the HR system. It also provides richer analysis on workforce data using Excel‘s flexibility.
10. Translator for Excel – Multi-language Support
Translator for Excel allows SMBs to easily translate Excel documents into other languages from the ribbon toolbar. Users can:
- Translate individual cells, rows, columns, or entire sheets
- Choose from 90+ languages for translation
- Edit translations within Excel before use
- Use translations instantly or save for later use
- Customize translations with glossaries for industry terms
For SMBs with multilingual stakeholders, Translator for Excel saves time and cost on manual translations. Sales sheets, financial reports, product specifications – any XL doc can be quickly translated at scale.
11. Bizazz – Reports and Presentations
Bizazz helps SMBs create visually appealing reports and presentations in Excel. Users can build dashboards, charts, infographics, reports, and slides using Bizazz‘s 1200+ templates.
Key features:
- 1200+ PowerPoint, Excel, and Word templates
- Charts, tables, maps, timelines, and more
- Visualization options for sales, marketing, HR, finance
- Drag-and-drop builder
- Animations and transitions
- Photos, icons, and custom visuals
For sales and marketing teams who need impactful reports and presentations, Bizazz can help save time spent on manual design and formatting.
12. Scanbot – Document Scanning
Scanbot lets users scan paper documents directly into Excel using their phone camera. Key features include:
- Photo and file scanning
- Automatic document detection and cropping
- Converting scans into PDFs or JPGs
- Smart naming and organization of scans
- Integration with cloud storage like OneDrive, Dropbox
- Document annotation and markup
- OCR text recognition
Scanbot minimizes time wasted on scanning, naming, and organizing documents. For finance teams, sales agents, HR, and others who work with paper documents, it streamlines digitization and archiving directly into Excel.
Choose the Right Add-Ins for Your SMB
Excel add-ins provide endless possibilities to customize Excel for your business needs. Start by identifying key tasks and challenges faced by your teams.
Then explore add-ins that can address those needs through automation, reporting, integration, data access, or other features.
Carefully evaluate free vs. paid add-ins based on the utility they will provide. For frequently used tools, paid add-ins can provide full-featured solutions with excellent support.
Source user feedback before rolling out new add-ins company-wide. Get a pulse on which add-ins best suit your teams‘ workflows.
With the right add-ins, Excel can become an even more powerful ally for SMBs. The above 12 options are some of the top in their respective categories, but new add-ins are continually being launched.
Keep exploring and help your teams simplify tasks and extract maximum value out of Excel.
