Page updated 22 Sep 2026
MadyHR.ai vs a spreadsheet
Excel and Google Sheets are the real competitor for many sponsor licence holders. They're free, familiar, and they hold the data perfectly well. The problem is everything a compliance officer asks for that isn't the data.
Keep the spreadsheet if
you have one or two sponsored workers, one person who owns the file, and a reliable habit of checking it every week.
Move to MadyHR.ai if
more than one person touches the records, you've ever discovered an expiry after the fact, or you'd struggle to show a visiting officer who changed a salary figure and when.
Side by side
| What a compliance visit asks for | Spreadsheet | MadyHR.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Right to Work evidence for each worker, with the date of the check and the expiry | A cell with a date; the document lives somewhere else | Check type, outcome, expiry and evidence file on the worker's record, with history |
| Follow-up checks for time-limited permission | Whoever remembers | Scheduled from the expiry, and shown in the attention queue with a countdown |
| Reportable changes, and the 10 working days you have to report them | Another tab, if someone keeps it — and a deadline nobody is counting | Each change logged against the worker with its reporting deadline counted from the day it happened, what is still to report in one view, and your record of reporting it to the SMS |
| Who changed what, and when | Version history at best; edits overwrite | An append-only audit log of Right to Work, salary and permission changes |
| Contracts, pay history and immigration documents together | Separate folders, separate tabs | One record per person, with contracts, salary history and immigration documents on it |
| Access control | Whole file or nothing | Company-scoped and role-based; sensitive fields masked |
| Everyday HR — leave, attendance, rota | More tabs | Included |
| Cost per year | £0 plus your time | £50, unlimited employees |
The honest case for the spreadsheet
It costs nothing, it needs no onboarding, and if you have two sponsored workers and a disciplined owner it can work. Nothing on this page should make you feel you're doing it wrong if that's you. The failure mode isn't the spreadsheet itself — it's the day the person who maintained it goes on leave, or the reporting deadline that was never a column.
What the switch looks like
Create your Company free (about a minute, no card), set up departments and locations, and look around with your own Company name on it. When you're ready, subscribe from inside the app. Your existing sheet is the list you work from — and once your employees are in, every Right to Work expiry and follow-up check is tracked from then on.
Questions people ask
Is a spreadsheet acceptable to the Home Office for sponsor record-keeping?
The sponsor guidance sets out what records you must keep and produce, not which tool you keep them in. A spreadsheet can hold the data; the difficulty is evidencing who changed what and when, keeping documents attached to each record, and making sure Right to Work follow-up dates and reportable changes are actually tracked rather than remembered.
What does it cost to run sponsor compliance in a spreadsheet?
The software is free. The cost is the time to maintain it, the risk of a missed reporting deadline or an expired Right to Work check, and — if someone turns out not to have the right to work and the check was missed — a civil penalty of up to £60,000 per illegal worker. MadyHR.ai is £50 a year.
Can I import my spreadsheet into MadyHR.ai?
Creating your Company is free, and once you subscribe you add employees from inside the app. Bulk import isn't self-service yet — email support@madyhr.ai and we'll help you move your records across.
How we keep this page accurate
This page describes MadyHR.ai and spreadsheets in general; it names no other product. Think something's wrong? Email support@madyhr.ai and we'll reply within one working day.
Change log
- — Page published.
MadyHR.ai is HR software, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal or immigration advice.