Every formula, validation, color convention, and 'don't touch column Q' rule is a requirement in disguise — audit the sheet with its owners; the folklore is the spec.
Spreadsheets force everything into cells; software gets roles, states, validations, and audit trails — the migration succeeds when users get a better process, not a slower spreadsheet.
Profile the accumulated chaos (duplicates, format drift, orphan rows), cleanse with owners deciding the ambiguous cases, and reconcile counts and totals before anyone retires anything.
Parallel-run period, the old sheet frozen read-only (never deleted), and adoption tracked by team — the change-management half decides whether the software wins.
Skipping the discipline this article describes until an incident, audit, or stalled project forces it — every practice above is cheaper adopted early than retrofitted under pressure.
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