Comparison
Spreadsheets vs continuous detection for Stripe Connect
Credit first: spreadsheets are free, auditable, and genuinely fine below a few hundred charges a month. The failure is structural, not moral — snapshots age, races hide, tolerance drifts between authors, and cadence converts recoveries into write-offs. This comparison prices both paths honestly.
What spreadsheets do well
Working papers finance already trusts; zero integration; complete authorial control over formulas — including our own published ones.
Where structure wins over diligence
Snapshot staleness versus live state. No per-charge serialisation across concurrent editors. Tolerance conventions drifting between authors. And the big one: quarterly rituals meet payout windows measured in days — detection latency decides recovery economics before effort does.
The hybrid most teams land on
Keep the sheet as working-paper layer; automate the watching; export findings into the sheet for journal prep. Best of both without pretending either replaces the other.
Common questions
Can I export findings to my sheet?
Yes — CSV export matches the columns manual audits need.
Is the scanner just a spreadsheet?
It runs production detectors on pasted data in seconds — same spirit, industrial execution.