The Spreadsheet that ran an RTO for Six Years
Every RTO has one. The risk is not the file, it is the knowledge only one person holds.
Most RTOs have a spreadsheet that began as a stopgap. A second tab appeared, then a colour code, then a formula only one person understood. This is an illustrative pattern, not a description of a specific organisation.
Where it goes wrong. When staff update the student system and the spreadsheet separately, the two drift apart. Nobody is careless. The workflow invites it. Then the person who built it leaves, and their replacement has to work out which tab is authoritative and what the colours mean.
Why it matters for compliance. If a step depends on an undocumented manual process, it is hard to show it was done the same way each time.
A simple test. If the person who maintains your most important spreadsheet left tomorrow, could someone else run the process without asking them? If not, the real risk is not the spreadsheet.
Upskroll writes changes to an audit trail, so the history of a record does not rely on someone's memory.
spreadsheets · handover · records