Lotics vs Excel

Excel and Google Sheets are spreadsheets: everyone knows them, and anyone can open one to calculate, list or analyse. Lotics is where every desk works on one set of records, and AI enters the orders, checks the figures and drafts the documents and invoices there.

Updated October 2026. Each fact about Excel cites its source.

Choose Excel when

  • One person tracks their own work, or a few people keep one shared file up to date.
  • The job is a one-off analysis: filter the figures, build a PivotTable, draw a chart.
  • You want no new cost: Excel comes with Microsoft 365, Google Sheets is free, and everyone already knows them.

Choose Lotics when

  • The same order sits in the sales, warehouse and receivables files with different figures, and only the person who built each file understands all its columns.
  • How the work is done lives in a few people's heads and in each person's own AI chats, so it leaves when they do.
  • Documents and e-invoices are still typed by hand from figures already in a file.

At a glance

ExcelLotics
What it isSpreadsheets: Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. Each file is a free-form grid where people set their own columns, formulas and charts.AI business management software: the data, an app for each desk and automations, where AI does everything the company needs and gets better at its work the longer it is used.
Built forAnyone who needs to calculate, list or analyse figures, from one person to a whole company.SMBs that still enter data and prepare documents and invoices by hand, starting with logistics and supply chain.
AICopilot in Excel builds tables, writes formulas, edits the open workbook and reads its change history; Gemini in Google Sheets analyses data, on Workspace Business Standard and up. ChatGPT or Claude read the files sent into a chat.ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or the built-in AI, able to do anything a person can.
SetupNone. Each person creates a file and sets its columns and formulas their own way.Your AI builds it from the files the company already uses in about 10 minutes, or the Lotics team does it for you.
E-invoicesNo connection to e-invoicing. Figures are typed again in the e-invoicing software, or copied into its template file for import.AI drafts e-invoices in MISA, BKAV or WinInvoice for the accountant to review and sign.
PriceDesktop Excel comes with Microsoft 365 Business Standard, $11.20 a person a month billed yearly (Vietnam price). Google Sheets is free with a Google account and comes with every Google Workspace plan. Source: Microsoft 365 Business Standard, VietnamFrom $60 a month for 1–10 people.

Where they differ

One set of records that stays in order

A spreadsheet is a free-form file: anyone adds a column, renames one, or saves a copy to edit on their own. A few years on, the same order sits in several files with different figures, only the person who built each file knows what its columns mean, and neither a new hire nor an AI can make sense of them.

Excel
Each file has the structure its author gave it. Several people can edit one file together; figures move between files by copying or through formulas that link them.
Lotics
Each kind of data is a table with typed fields, linked to the others: orders to customers, invoices to orders. AI enters figures from Excel files, email and Zalo messages into them, and each desk works in its own app on those same tables.

Experience that stays with the company

How each job is done lives in people's heads: what a column means, which customer gets which price, how the last case was handled. What the AI did for each person stays in that person's chats. When someone leaves, it leaves with them, and whoever replaces them starts over.

Excel
For files on OneDrive or SharePoint, Excel keeps versions of each file and its cell edits for up to 365 days; saving a copy or replacing the file clears the cell-edit history. Copilot reads the open workbook's history, and with a paid Copilot subscription it also searches work documents. Source: Excel change history
Lotics
Lotics records who changed which field of which record, and when, on every table, and keeps prices, procedures and each customer's terms in knowledge docs. ChatGPT, Claude or the built-in AI read the records, that history and that knowledge with the asker's access, so the next job starts from how the last one was done.

Wrong figures stopped at entry

Typing by hand makes mistakes routine: an extra zero, the wrong customer code. An error found at dispatch, or when the customer reconciles the account, costs far more than one caught at entry.

Excel
Excel's Data Validation stops a wrong value typed into a cell, but not one pasted or filled in. Checking a dispatch note against the order in another file takes a formula or a person. Source: Excel data validation
Lotics
Rules on each table refuse bad data whether it is typed, pasted, imported from a file or written by AI, and can check against another table, such as a dispatch note against its order. On request, AI cross-checks and flags what doesn't match for the person responsible.

Documents and invoices from the records

In many companies the invoice is where the most retyping happens: the figures are already in the order file, yet someone keys them again into the contract, the stock issue note and the e-invoicing software.

Excel
Figures are copied from the order file into Word or Excel templates, or filled in batches with Word's mail merge. E-invoices are typed again, or copied into a template file for import.
Lotics
AI fills the company's own Word and Excel templates from the records, hundreds at a time, and drafts e-invoices in MISA, BKAV or WinInvoice for the accountant to review and sign.

Moving from Excel to Lotics

  1. Gather the files in use (orders, customers, stock, receivables); download any Google Sheets file as Excel.
  2. Hand those files to your AI (ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini) with the setup prompt.
  3. It builds the tables, apps and document templates in Lotics from the columns in each file, then imports the data.
  4. Keep Excel for one-off analysis and Zalo for talking to customers. The orders, documents and invoices move to Lotics.

Rather not do it yourself? The Lotics team does it all, from $60 a month. See pricing

What customers say about Lotics

Read Conta's story

Frequently asked questions

Don't see your question? Message the Lotics team on Messenger or by email.

Yes, while one person or a few track one job in one file. Once several desks type the same order into their own files, the figures drift apart, and documents and invoices are still retyped from the files.

Because an Excel file holds no shared structure: each person adds columns for their own work, each desk keeps its own copy, and nothing makes the copies agree. The more people edit a file, the fewer understand all of it. Lotics keeps the structure in the tables: typed fields, links and rules that apply to everyone who enters data, AI included.

When the same figure is typed into several files, when every report means gathering figures from several places, or when typing errors reach customers: the wrong quantity delivered, an invoice at the wrong price. That is usually when the work grows faster than the team can type, check and invoice.

Yes. Lotics replaces the files used to manage orders, stock, receivables, documents and invoices. Excel stays for one-off analysis on data exported from Lotics, and the company's Excel templates stay for AI to fill.

Yes. Customers keep ordering and talking on Zalo. Staff paste the message or send the photo of an order to the AI, the AI enters it in Lotics, and the documents it drafts still go to the customer over Zalo.

ChatGPT reads a copy of the file you send into the chat, and its answer stays there; the copy is out of date as soon as someone edits the original. Copilot edits the open Excel workbook. In Lotics, ChatGPT, Claude or the built-in AI write straight into the whole company's shared records, and every desk sees the same figures.

From an Excel file, an AI reads the figures, and Copilot also reads that file's own cell-edit history. The reasons behind them, such as why one customer gets a different price or what an abbreviated column means, stay in the head of whoever built the file. In Lotics, AI reads the records with the history of every change and the company's knowledge docs, so it works the way the company has worked. What grows is not how capable the AI is but what it has to work from.

No. Your team tells the AI what needs doing and reviews the result, on screens built around the way they already work.

Every change is recorded and can be undone. Where the AI is unsure, it flags the item for a person to check instead of guessing.

By the number of people, from $60 a month for 1–10 people. Your own ChatGPT or Claude uses no AI Credits.

Get started with Lotics

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