Every vendor says Excel should go. The best Business Central partners know better. Thomas Werkhoven, director of Exsion365 and a former controller himself, explains why controllers won’t let go of Excel, and how smart partners turn that into a commercial advantage.

Why controllers stick with Excel

Controllers love Excel. The formulas live in their fingers. The layouts have been refined over years. The shortcuts are second nature. Excel is home ground.

That’s not because they can’t handle a new tool. It’s because Excel gives them the flexibility they need. When the board fires off a question on Friday afternoon, most controllers would rather answer it in their own spreadsheet than in a dashboard someone else built six months ago.

For controllers, it’s not about the tool. It’s about speed and flexibility. For you as a partner, that’s not a problem to solve. It’s a commercial opening.

BI tools have their place, just not everywhere

Power BI, Tableau, Qlik. For strategic dashboards and enterprise analytics, they’re solid choices. For the day-to-day reports a controller runs, they’re often a poor fit.

Need an extra column? Wait for IT. Ad-hoc question from the MD? Get a consultant involved. It grates.

The outcome is always the same. Controllers nod politely in the meeting, go back to their desks, and open Excel. Not out of stubbornness, just because it works.

Smart partners read the room

The best BC partners have worked out that Excel isn’t a problem to fix. It’s a behaviour to build on.

Arnold van der Werf, License Specialist at 4PS, puts it plainly: “Power BI for the fixed dashboards, Exsion for anything that needs flexibility. The controller can respond to questions straight away, without pulling IT in.”

That’s the positioning that actually lands. Not “drop Excel, here’s our BI tool,” but “stay in Excel, just smarter.”

Exsion Reporting as the bridge

Exsion Reporting connects Excel directly to Business Central. No exports, no copy-paste, no snapshots that were already stale by lunchtime. One click on refresh and the live figures are in the report.

Controllers carry on working in the environment they know. They build their own reports, combine data from different tables, and refresh everything with a single click. No data scientist, no BI layer to maintain.

Arnold van der Werf again: “Exsion 365 helps our clients extract and analyse data fast, without any complicated processes. Users stay in the Excel environment they already know.”

Less pushback, faster adoption

You feel the difference in your sales conversations straight away. Instead of a drawn-out debate about a BI rollout, you get genuine enthusiasm. Controllers see it working in five minutes. They get it immediately.

That translates into shorter sales cycles, less demo friction, and clients who are up and running the same day. You’re not “yet another BI salesperson.” You’re the partner who actually understands what controllers want. And that sets you apart from the competition still pushing tools nobody asked for.

Commercially? You earn 25% recurring revenue every month, with no support burden. We build the first report together with your client and handle support from there.

Book a demo

Next time a controller sighs at the word “BI,” you’ve got an answer ready. Not another platform, just Excel with superpowers.

Want to see how this works in practice? Get in touch for a no-strings demo. In five minutes we’ll show you how Exsion Reporting positions you as the partner who truly gets it.

Also read: From manual work to automation: stop copy-pasting