The tracker spreadsheet works. Until it has to answer a money question.
Most agencies in India run on a shared tracker: one tab for projects, one for hours, one for the retainer, and a margin tab only one person trusts. That is not a mistake. It is the cheapest system there is. This page is about when it stops being enough, and when it is still the right answer.
Last reviewed: 23 October 2026
Should an agency replace its spreadsheet?
Google Sheets and Excel are flexible, familiar and already paid for, and several people can edit the same sheet at once. They do not know what a project, an hour or an approval is, so every connection between them is a formula someone has to maintain. Ancor is built for 10 to 100 person agencies: hours logged against tasks turn into live project margin, capacity shows who is over 100% next week, clients approve by link with no login, and GST invoices are drafted from the work. Keep the spreadsheet for analysis and the finance model; move the live operating record when reconciling it costs more than it saves.
A blank grid, or a model of agency work.
Anything you can build
Fits a small team, a few projects, or a founder who wants full control of the layout. Strongest on flexibility, cost and familiarity. Every rule (who logs time, how margin is worked out, what counts as approved) lives in formulas and habits.
An agency operating record
For marketing, creative and digital agencies of 10 to 100 people. Projects, tasks, hours, cost rates, retainers, client approvals and invoices are one connected record, so the numbers agree without anyone reconciling them.
What the tracker does, and what it leaves to you.
| Job | Google Sheets or Excel | Ancor |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Anyone with a Google account can create in Sheets; Excel comes with Microsoft 365 | Flat per team: ₹9,999 a month + GST up to 10 people, ₹14,999 a month + GST up to 20, ₹19,999 a month + GST up to 30 |
| Flexibility | Total. Any layout, any formula | Fixed agency model: clients, engagements, tasks, roles, rate cards |
| Editing together | Several people can edit the same sheet at once, with revision history | Each person logs their own time and tasks; roles decide who sees what |
| Who sees salaries and cost rates | Whoever can open the file or tab | Margin and money views are limited to the owner, admin, ops and finance roles |
| Hours to project margin | Formulas you maintain; breaks when rows move | Live: each hour is costed as it is logged, with a warning when a project heads below target |
| Who is overbooked next week | A separate allocation tab, updated by hand | Booked hours against available hours per person, week by week, with leave and public holidays taken out |
| Timesheet discipline | Whatever you set up yourself | Reminders, weekly submit, approve and lock, and a check on late or rounded entries |
| Client approval | An email, a comment or a WhatsApp message | Approval by link with no client login, pinned to the exact version the client saw |
| Retainer burn | A count of posts or hours against the allowance, kept by hand | Allowance by deliverable with burn-down, rollover and overage drafts |
| GST invoice | A template copied each month | Drafted from hours or milestones, CGST and SGST or IGST by place of supply, with Tally export |
Google Sheets details from workspace.google.com/products/sheets, checked 23 October 2026. Spreadsheets can do much of the right-hand column with enough formulas, scripts or add-ons; the table describes what each does without that work.
Four places a tracker spreadsheet quietly loses money.
- The margin tab runs after the fact. Hours are pasted in at month end, so a fixed-fee project that went over budget in week two shows up after the invoice has gone. Ancor costs each hour when it is logged.
- Delivered work that never reaches an invoice. The retainer said 20 posts, the team made 26, and nobody added the extra six to the bill because the tracker and the invoice live in different files. Ancor tracks delivered work against what was sold and drafts the overage.
- Hours filled in from memory. A Friday afternoon timesheet is mostly round numbers. Ancor shows how late and how rounded each person's entries are, so you know how far to trust the margin.
- The approval nobody can find. When a client disputes a sign-off, the proof is somewhere in an email thread. Ancor ties every approval to a version, with a record of who approved and when.
Be honest about fit. Sometimes it is the spreadsheet.
- You are under ten people with a few projects. The cost of the tracker is low and one person can hold it in their head.
- Your work is one-off and fixed-fee with no retainers. If nothing recurs and nothing is billed by the hour, there is less to reconcile.
- You need a custom model. Board packs, scenario planning and cash forecasts are what spreadsheets are best at. Ancor does not replace them.
- Nobody will log time. If the team will not log hours in any tool, no software fixes margin. Start with the habit first.
Start with one client, not the whole workbook.
Download the tracker tab as CSV or .xlsx and import it: Ancor maps the columns before anything is created. Set cost rates for each role so margin has something to work from, then run one live client in Ancor for the 14-day trial while the spreadsheet carries on. If the numbers do not earn their place in two weeks, you have lost nothing and kept the sheet. Before that, the free margin leak check reads last month's tracker as a CSV and shows what was delivered and not billed, without storing the file.
Leaving the spreadsheet. The questions worth asking first.
Is Google Sheets or Excel good enough to run an agency?
For a small team with a handful of projects, often yes. A spreadsheet is flexible, everyone already knows it, and it costs nothing extra. It starts to strain when several people edit the same tracker, when hours have to turn into margin and invoices, and when you need to prove what a client approved. That is usually somewhere past ten people or a few retainers running at once.
What is the best alternative to Excel for agency project tracking?
It depends on what the spreadsheet is doing for you. If it is mainly a task list, a general project tool such as Asana, ClickUp or Monday.com may be enough. If it is also your timesheet, your margin calculation, your retainer tracker and your invoice prep, an agency management tool such as Ancor keeps those in one record, so the hours, the margin and the invoice agree with each other.
Can I import my tracker spreadsheet into Ancor?
Yes. Ancor imports CSV or Excel files, so a Google Sheet downloaded as CSV or .xlsx comes straight in. It recognises exports from Asana, Jira and Monday.com, and a generic sheet is mapped column by column before anything is created.
How much does Ancor cost compared with a free spreadsheet?
Ancor is one flat price per team: Studio is ₹9,999 a month + GST for up to 10 people, Practice is ₹14,999 a month + GST for up to 20, and Atelier is ₹19,999 a month + GST for up to 30. A spreadsheet costs nothing extra. The honest comparison is against the hours someone spends each month reconciling the tracker, and the work that was delivered but never billed.
Do we have to stop using spreadsheets completely?
No. Most agencies keep spreadsheets for the finance model, board packs and one-off analysis. What moves into Ancor is the live operating record: projects, hours, capacity, client approvals, retainers and invoices.