Comparisons

Zahlenwerk vs Excel

Most family offices track their portfolio in a workbook, and often that is the right call. This page is about the point where it stops being one.

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Choose Zahlenwerk if

You hold positions across more than one legal entity and need a consolidated view that is current, not rebuilt each quarter
Statements and notices from a dozen administrators arrive every quarter and someone types them in
You need to show, months later, which document a reported figure came from, including after a restatement
Positions and the books for each entity should agree without a week of work at year end
More than one person works in it, and not everyone should see everything

Choose Excel if

You hold a handful of fund positions in one entity
One person maintains it, and that person is staying
There are few enough statements to type in within an hour a quarter
You want full control over every formula and are happy to own the maintenance
You do not want another subscription

Side by side

As of October 11, 2026. Excel here means a portfolio workbook as most family offices run one, not what Excel could do with unlimited effort.

Zahlenwerk vs Excel
	Zahlenwerk	Excel
Published price	From €199 a month, on the pricing page	Usually already licensed through Microsoft 365
What the price depends on	The package, priced per team. Not assets under management	Nothing beyond the licence you have
Getting started	Beta, by waitlist. No implementation project	Today
Fund statements and notices	Forward or upload. Parsed into records; fields below the confidence bar wait for a person	Typed in by hand
Figure back to its source	Every figure links to the page of the document it was read from	Only if someone records it, usually as a file name or a comment
Books per legal entity	Included: chart of accounts, bank transactions, coding, loans and interest, per legal entity	Kept separately, usually by the Steuerberater, and reconciled at year end
Claude and ChatGPT	Built-in assistant. Claude and ChatGPT connect over OAuth with the user's own permissions	Copilot in Microsoft 365 can work on an open workbook
German	Website and documentation in German; the app is in English	Yes

Where Excel is the better choice

A spreadsheet is cheap, transparent and does exactly what its owner asks. No formula is hidden from you, nothing waits on a vendor's roadmap, and every advisor you work with can open it.

If your portfolio is a few funds in one entity, maintained by one person, a well-built workbook is the right tool, and we say so in our own guide to running a private equity portfolio in Excel. Replacing it too early gets you a platform used as a worse spreadsheet.

Questions

Do I have to give up the spreadsheet?

No. A common start is to forward one quarter of statements and compare the result with the workbook you trust. You can export everything, so the workbook can stay as a cross-check for as long as you want it.

When does a spreadsheet stop being enough?

Usually when one of three things happens: a second entity needs a consolidated view, a second person needs to write to it, or statements arrive faster than someone can type them in. Each of those turns a file into a system that only one person understands.

Is Zahlenwerk more expensive than Excel?

Yes, Excel is already paid for. The comparison that matters is the time spent typing statements, rebuilding the consolidated view and reconciling with the books at year end, and what a wrong figure in a report costs. Our packages are on the pricing page.

Test it on one quarter of statements

Forward one quarter's statements and compare what comes out with the workbook you already trust. That is how the firms in the beta started, and it is a better test than any comparison page.

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