Loamio vs. spreadsheets and paper

Short answer

Is it time to leave the spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet plus paper run sheets is a real system. It's free, everyone has used one, and it works — until one of three things happens: the person who built it leaves, assessment season collides with another deadline, or a shareholder disputes a delivery that nobody can document. Loamio replaces the spreadsheet, the clipboard, and the filing cabinet with a single record that the secretary, the ditchrider, the board, and the shareholder can all see.

Head-to-head

Loamio vs. spreadsheet and paper, capability by capability

The Loamio column reflects Loamio's current offering across its plans (see pricing).

Honest take

Where the spreadsheet is the better pick

This is rare, but worth being honest about:

• Very small operations. A handful of shareholders, one ditch, no assessments — a single sheet and a paper notebook may genuinely be cheaper.
• You're winding the company down. If your district is in the process of consolidating with a neighbor or dissolving, a new system isn't worth the migration.
• You have a custom workflow nothing on the market handles. If your district's accounting is genuinely unique, a sheet you control may beat a product you'd have to bend.

Honest take

Where Loamio is the better pick

• More than one person needs to know how things work. If your district is exposed to the loss of the secretary or the one person who maintains the spreadsheet, that's the strongest reason to move. A modern system makes the records legible to the board, to the next hire, and to your auditor.
• Assessment season eats weeks. If you can describe the reconciliation work in "weeks" instead of "hours," the software pays for itself. Loamio runs the assessment off the ledger that was already correct.
• Ditchriders cover ground with no signal. Paper run sheets get wet, smudged, lost. Loamio's offline-first app captures deliveries, skips, and notes at the headgate, then syncs when the device gets back in range.
• You need to defend a delivery in writing. Spreadsheets and paper rarely produce a clean audit trail. Every order, delivery, edit, and assessment line item lives in one timestamped record.
• Shareholders are starting to expect online payment. Stripe ACH, card, or invoice — collected through your district's connected Stripe account, reconciled against the ledger automatically, no second vendor.

Loamio pricing

Flat pricing by district size.

No per-user charges and no per-shareholder fees. Pick the tier that matches your operation.

Migration

Migrating from a spreadsheet to Loamio

If your current system is a sheet plus paper, the move is more straightforward than from a legacy product:

1. Send us your assessment spreadsheet, your shareholder list, and a recent run sheet. That's usually enough to plan the migration.
2. We reconcile shares and balances. Loamio onboarding migrates the records and balances the ledger before go-live, so day one in the new system matches the last entry in your old one.
3. Hands-on training for the ditchrider, the secretary, and the board. Different people, different screens, different concerns. We train each role.
4. Go live before your next assessment or water-order cycle. No half-migrated season.
5. Export anytime to CSV. Your shareholders, ledger, orders, and billing history belong to your district and can be exported at any time.

Other comparisons: Loamio vs. WaterMaster · Loamio vs. Watervize · Loamio vs. CVSS Storm