Spreadsheet Collaboration Is Broken.

Spreadsheets are the backbone of finance.
From budgeting and forecasting to reporting and scenario planning, FP&A teams live in Excel and Google Sheets. Despite the rise of modern finance tools, spreadsheets remain the default interface for how businesses plan and operate.
But there’s a problem.

Spreadsheet collaboration, especially in financial planning, is fundamentally broken. And most teams have just learned to live with it.

1. The Illusion of Real-Time Collaboration

On paper, tools like Excel Online and Google Sheets promise seamless, multi-user collaboration. The idea is simple: multiple stakeholders working on the same file, in real time, without friction. In reality, it rarely works that way.
Anyone in FP&A has experienced it:

• Edits not saving properly

• Version conflicts

• Files locking at the worst possible time

• “Who changed this?” moments with no clear answer

Even when the infrastructure technically supports collaboration, the experience is fragile. Teams don’t trust it.
So what happens?
They revert to safer – but far more inefficient – workflows.

2. The Copy-Paste Economy of Financial Planning

Because spreadsheets lack true access control, finance teams face a deeper structural issue: There is no safe way to collaborate on the same file with different stakeholders. Spreadsheets don’t support granular permissions.

You can’t easily say:

• “This manager sees only their department”

• “This leader sees only their region”

• “This executive sees the full picture”

So FP&A teams improvise: They create templates. They send copies. They wait.
A typical budgeting cycle looks like this:

• FP&A builds a master spreadsheet

• Copies are sent to budget owners

• Each owner fills in their version

• Files are sent back

• FP&A manually consolidates everything

• Changes are requested

• Files are sent back again

And the cycle repeats.
This “ping-pong” workflow is not just inefficient – it’s fundamentally broken. Why? Because at any given moment there is no single source of truth, no real-time visibility, no continuous understanding of the full budget. Instead, teams operate on snapshots – interrupted, outdated views of reality.

3. Spreadsheets Without Context Are Just Static Tables

Even beyond collaboration, spreadsheets suffer from another critical limitation:

They are disconnected from the rest of the business.
Most financial models:

• Are manually updated

• Rely on exported data

• Quickly go out of sync

There’s no direct connection to:

• CRM systems

• Marketing data

• Operational metrics

• Real-time revenue streams

And there’s no intelligence layer.

If a number changes, the spreadsheet doesn’t explain why.
If a trend emerges, it doesn’t highlight it.
If a decision needs to be made, it doesn’t help you make it.

The result?
Finance teams spend more time maintaining spreadsheets than extracting value from them.

What Spreadsheet Collaboration Should Look Like

Let’s rethink this from first principles. What if:

• Everyone worked on the same spreadsheet

• Each user saw only what they were supposed to see

• The full model updated in real time

• Data flowed in automatically from all systems

• And AI could assist, explain, and even edit the model

That’s exactly what Arito enables.

– One File. Multiple Views. Full Control.

With Arito, collaboration happens on a single shared spreadsheet. But here’s the key difference: Every user gets a personalized view of that file – based on their permissions.
This is made possible by something fundamentally new:
Cell-Level RBAC in Spreadsheets
Arito introduces cell-level role-based access control (RBAC) directly into spreadsheets.

That means:
○ Access can be controlled at the level of rows, columns, or individual cells
○ Each stakeholder sees only their relevant slice of the data
○ Sensitive information remains fully protected

For example:
○ A department head sees only their budget
○ A regional manager sees only their region
○ FP&A sees the full consolidated model

All within the same spreadsheet. No copies. No duplication. No risk of overexposure.

– Real-Time Consolidation, Without the Pain.

Because everyone works on the same file:
○ Inputs are updated live
○ Consolidation happens automatically
○ FP&A always sees the full, up-to-date picture

There is no more:
○ Manual merging
○ Version confusion
○ Waiting for inputs

The entire budgeting process becomes continuous instead of iterative so instead of chasing data, finance teams can focus on what actually matters: Analyzing, Adjusting and Driving decisions

– A Spreadsheet That’s Actually Connected.

Arito turns spreadsheets from static documents into live operational interfaces.
Your spreadsheet can connect directly to:
○ CRM systems
○ Marketing platforms
○ Finance tools
○ Data warehouses

Data flows in automatically. No exports. No manual updates.No broken links.
And because Arito is built as an agentic analytics platform, it adds something even more powerful: and AI That Works Inside Your Spreadsheet. With Arito, spreadsheets are no longer passive tools. They become interactive.

Users can:
○ Ask questions directly in the spreadsheet
○ Request changes using natural language
○ Pull in data from other systems instantly

For example:
○ “Update this model with the latest pipeline data”
○ “Adjust forecasts based on last quarter’s conversion rates”
○ “Highlight anomalies in this budget”

The AI agent doesn’t just analyze- it can modify the spreadsheet itself. And because all actions respect permissions, then users only interact with data they are allowed to see and changes are controlled and traceable

Final Thoughts: Collaboration, The Way It Should Be

Arito doesn’t just improve spreadsheets, it redefines them.

Instead of fragmented files, endless back-and-forth or static, disconnected data, you get:

• A single source of truth

• Real-time collaboration

• Granular access control

• Live, connected data

• AI-powered interaction

Most importantly, you unlock something finance teams have never truly had: The ability to collaborate on the same model, securely, in real time, with full context.

• Between control and usability

• Between access and security

• Between speed and accuracy

Arito removes that compromise.

This is spreadsheet collaboration
the way it should have always worked.