Years ago, I worked at a manufacturer selling both directly and through partners, not just in the Netherlands, but across Europe. On paper, we were well set up, we had an ERP, Microsoft Dynamics, processes, and scale. In reality, our entire pricing logic lived in one massive Excel file built by a single colleague. If I would ask myself honestly at that time, if that spreadsheet disappears tomorrow, does your pricing process survive? The answer… NO.
Only one person really understood how that pricing file worked, and everyone else just hoped it wouldn’t break. We regularly used outdated versions because Excel has no concept of truth, only copies. Sharing pricing with partners meant manually checking if we sent the right file, every single time. How often do we trust a spreadsheet simply because it’s the latest version you can find?
The ERP wasn’t broken, it just wasn’t built for how we actually sold. ERPs are systems of record, not systems of differentiation, especially once partner pricing, country rules, discounts, and exceptions show up. The moment reality becomes messy, the ERP pushes back and teams escape into Excel. If Excel is where your commercial logic lives, where does accountability actually sit?
This setup didn’t just feel risky, it actively cost us money. We made pricing mistakes, sent the wrong versions, and applied the wrong rules, not because people were careless, but because the system was. Revenue leakage became normalized because it was spread across many small errors. Do you actually know how much revenue you lose today because of “minor” pricing mistakes? Or even worse bc of “minor” Excel interpretation mistakes.
What we really needed wasn’t another ERP module or a bigger spreadsheet. We needed a small application on top of the ERP, purpose-built for pricing. One place where pricing logic lived as software, not formulas, with version control, access rights, and clear ownership. Not to replace the ERP, but to work with it.
First, I’d keep the ERP clean as the system of record for products, customers, currencies, and orders. I wouldn’t force it to handle complex partner pricing logic it was never designed for. Ask yourself, what data needs stability and auditability, and what logic needs speed and flexibility? That separation is the foundation of escaping Excel hell.
Next, I’d move all pricing logic into a dedicated pricing app. Country rules, partner tiers, discount guardrails, margin floors, approvals, and versioning would all live there. Ask yourself, can anyone on your team explain how pricing works without opening a 30-tab spreadsheet? If not, that logic belongs in an app.
Governance would be built in by design, not added later when finance or IT starts panicking. Role-based access, approval workflows, logging, and clean integrations with ERP and CRM would be non-negotiable. Ask yourself, if a partner receives the wrong price list, do you know who generated it, when, and why? If the answer is no, you don’t have control, you have hope.
Finally, I’d kill version chaos forever. The app would generate partner-specific price lists automatically, always from the latest approved logic, in the right language and currency. Partners would access pricing through a portal or secure link, not a file that gets forwarded 17 times and ends up in someone’s inbox. How much time, stress, and revenue would that save you every quarter?
Back then, I had the responsibility and the pain, but not the tools. Building something like this meant long IT projects, external vendors, and months of alignment before anything shipped. So we defaulted to Excel because it was fast and “good enough”. Looking back, the problem wasn’t ambition, it was timing.
If I had that same role today, in this day and age, I wouldn’t wait for permission. I’d build the pricing app myself as part of my job, not as a side project. No endless business cases, no six-month timelines, no dependency on vendor roadmaps. Just solving the problem where it lives.
Working at Betty Blocks, I see daily what wasn’t possible back then. App generation and vibe coding mean leaders can finally build the systems they’re accountable for. If you’re still running critical commercial logic in Excel, you’re choosing risk over control. This is exactly the kind of app I would build myself today.