Sharvy vs Excel: why automate your car park management?

Company car park is not just a question of available spaces: it also reflects the organisation and efficiency of your teams. Between employees, occasional visitors and space constraints, managing these flows can quickly become complicated.

Many people still rely on Excel. It’s a handy tool at first, but over time, the spreadsheets become cumbersome, updates are time-consuming, and the overview is limited.

Optimising this management is not just about avoiding errors, but also about saving time and streamlining day-to-day operations. In this article, we will look at the limitations of Excel and the benefits of more automated management to make your company car park simpler and better organised.

The limitations of Excel for managing a company car park.

1. Manual entry and frequent errors.

Remember: Excel relies on constant manual data entry. Every space reservation, every change to the schedule or user type must be entered by hand.

The more employees and visitors you have, the greater the risk of error. A simple typo or oversight can create a double booking, leave a space unused or cause conflicts between your employees.

What’s more, correcting these errors takes time. You have to go through the rows, check the formulas, and sometimes recalculate totals or check the consistency of the data. This repetitive task is a source of stress and consumes precious hours each week.

2. Complicated tracking of employees and visitors.

Excel is not designed to easily manage the diversity of users and types of spaces. In a company car park, you have to distinguish between full-time employees, those who work from home, occasional visitors, and spaces reserved for management and people with reduced mobility (PRM).

To organise all this in Excel, you need to create multiple columns, filters and sometimes several separate sheets. The file quickly becomes complex and difficult to navigate. When an employee changes places, a visitor arrives unexpectedly, or a disabled space must remain free, it is difficult to ensure that everything is recorded correctly.

This complexity makes it almost impossible to get an overview. How many spaces are actually available? Are spaces reserved for people with disabilities correctly allocated and freed up at the right time? With Excel, answering these questions in real time becomes laborious and increases the risk of conflicts and errors.

3. Inefficient reporting and monitoring.

Monitoring company car park occupancy and producing reports for management are critical issues.

Excel can generate a few graphs or tables, but obtaining reliable data often requires lengthy manipulation. Information must be compiled, duplicates checked, totals recalculated and data updated.

This approach is slow and prone to errors. Managers do not have a clear and immediate view of car park usage, which complicates planning and decision-making. It is therefore difficult to know which spaces are most in demand, which periods are underused, and how to optimise space effectively.

The advantages of an automated solution such as Sharvy.

1. Real-time visibility: know who is occupying which space.

Excel works like a snapshot: the moment you update it, it’s already out of date. Every change has to be entered manually, and if you forget an entry, the overall view is distorted. The result: it’s impossible to know in real time which spaces are occupied and which are free.

With an automated solution like Sharvy, updates are instantaneous. When an employee reserves, cancels or releases a space, the information is immediately updated within the application. This gives you a clear and up-to-date view of the company car park without having to open a file, activate filters or cross-check data.

Where Excel forces you to « guess », an automated solution allows you to control. 

2. Fairer allocation and an improved user experience.

Excel does not perform any intelligent management. It has no ability to interpret rules, prioritise needs, balance requests, or manage special cases.

As a result, it does not take into account:

• • Priorities (PMR, management, carpooling, etc.).
  • Teleworking days.
  • Occasional arrivals.
  • Demand volumes.

The result is an allocation that often depends on who fills in the file, rather than on a shared logic. This is often arbitrary, frustrating and opaque. Some people always get a place, others never do. This creates a feeling of injustice, even favouritism.

With Sharvy, you define clear allocation rules. For example, alternation, priority based on seniority, quotas per department, automatic management of PRMs. This ensures a fair distribution that is accepted by all.

What’s more, transparency immediately improves the user experience: they know why, how and when they get a space. The company car park ceases to be a source of internal tension and becomes a smooth, well-managed service.

3. Operational time savings.

Excel forces you to do everything manually: enter, correct, check, send emails, remind people of the rules, reformat columns, delete duplicates, etc. Every change is a small administrative task. Multiply that by dozens or hundreds of users, and you can see why Excel becomes exhausting and time-consuming.

With a solution like Sharvy, these tasks disappear:

• • Employees make their own bookings.
  • Allocation rules are applied automatically.
  • Cancellations and changes do not require any manual intervention.
  • Alerts are automatic.
  • Records are kept.

This is not just a nice bonus. It is a real operational gain. HR and General Services teams free up several hours per week, which means they can reinvest their time in higher value-added tasks.

4. Optimisation of available space.

Excel is a static tool. It stores data, but does not analyse it. Of course, you can create a few cross-tables and graphs, but this takes time, rigorous formatting and, above all, constant updating.

As a result, you never have a reliable view of the actual occupancy of your company car park. It is impossible to easily identify which days are busy, which are quiet, which spaces are often free, and where there is room for optimisation.

With a digital solution like Sharvy, this information is immediately visible.

The application’s algorithm automatically records usage patterns and provides accurate indicators: occupancy rates, under-utilised periods, peaks in demand, sharing rates, etc.

This visibility allows you to make informed and effective choices, such as reviewing allocation rules, sharing spaces more, and avoiding unnecessary investment in expansion. Where Excel leaves you guessing, Sharvy gives you concrete information to help you make decisions.

Sharvy gives you concrete information to help you decide.

5. An ideal framework for flex office and teleworking.

Flexible office and remote working are changing the way employees use parking: they no longer all come to the office on the same days, and their parking needs are constantly changing.

Excel was not designed to manage this dynamic. To take into account holidays, teleworking, travel and sick leave, someone would have to update the table every day, line by line. This is unmanageable in the long term and often leads to duplication, oversights and therefore tension in the car park.

A solution such as Sharvy can be integrated into your company’s HRIS via an API and can automatically retrieve data on absences, remote working and attendance.

As a result, if an employee is on leave or teleworking, their space is automatically freed up and reallocated to someone who really needs it. The application is therefore synchronised with the reality on the ground and is not just a list that needs to be maintained.

In conclusion

Managing a company car park is not just a question of available spaces: it reflects the organisation and functioning of the company. A well-designed car park makes life easier for employees, reduces tension and contributes to a smoother daily routine.

Switching from a spreadsheet to an automated solution is not just a matter of replacing Excel: it means rethinking how flows are organised, how space is used and how decisions are made. This makes it possible to better anticipate needs, react quickly to the unexpected and create a more harmonious environment for everyone.

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