While writing his weekly column in Forbes Ron Shevlin of Cornerstone Advisors says the new Money in Excel tool from Microsoft and Plaid will die on the vine as a consumer service; Shevlin instead thinks Money in Excel has a lot more potential for the small business market; the current focus on consumers has good and bad news for the new partnership; the good news is that there is no dominant PFM tool, the bad news is most people do not utilize tools to manage their money and even less pay money to do so; Bryan Clagett, Director, Strategic Initiatives at StrategyCorps agrees with Shevlin as he explains, “An Excel ‘add-in’ makes more sense for small businesses than for consumers. Consumers don’t care about tracking their spending behaviors—small businesses do. In addition, small businesses are already closely tied into the Microsoft ecosystem.”; according to Aite Group about 70 percent of small businesses are more dependent on spreadsheets than they need to be; Cornerstone Advisors found that about 30 percent of small businesses use spreadsheets to do their accounting which points to the fact that Money in Excel would be a better fit for SMBs. Forbes
