Digital beats paper & spreadsheets.
A fair, row-by-row comparison. Paper and Excel are free to start — but the hidden costs accumulate quickly. This table shows where digital management pays off, and where the two approaches are equivalent.
The data is based on operator interviews and publicly available information. We are Hops — we have a perspective.
14 comparison axes
Published June 2026
Hops
Digital · family business · NL
Excel & Paper
Traditional · free to start
Data risk
Automatic hourly back-ups on Azure EU-West. No data lost from a broken laptop or wet folder.
One faulty hard drive or water damage = everything gone. No automatic back-up.
Audit trail
Every change — who, what, when — is logged irrefutably. Exportable for inspections, tax and accountant.
No version history. Corrections are invisible; "what was there before?" cannot be answered.
Notifications
Push alerts to mobile: schedule change, request approved, fridge out of range, BHV certificate expired.
No automatic alerts — information only reaches staff when someone actively communicates it.
Cost (direct)
From €79/month for the full platform — all modules included.
Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace + printing: €10–15/user/month. Hidden: hours spent on manual upkeep.
Cost (indirect)
Owners and managers report 5–8 hours saved per week. Errors that are not made cost nothing.
Scheduling errors, roster disputes, lost receipts, and manual timesheets cost 6–10 hours/week on average.
Setup time
First employee active: 2 minutes. Full restaurant live: 1 day. No consultant, no migration invoice.
Zero setup time — but also zero structure. Every new employee means re-explaining how the "system" works.
HACCP proof
Digital checklists with photo proof and timestamp. Inspector-ready export in three clicks.
Paper logs that get wet, disappear, or are illegible. Searching folders takes an hour.
Tip distribution
Automatically calculated by hours or points. Cash + card separated. Staff see share in real time. Zero disputes.
Calculated manually on paper or Excel. Errors are inevitable; disputes are weekly.
Leave management
Leave requests via mobile, approved in one click, automatically updated in the schedule.
Email, WhatsApp or paper note. No central overview; leave balances tracked manually in a spreadsheet.
Schedule communication
Schedule published = push to every employee. Responses, shift swaps, and objections via one channel.
Schedule on a notice board or WhatsApp. No read confirmation; changes do not reach everyone.
VAT admin (receipts)
OCR scans purchase receipts, splits 9% and 21% automatically, books to the correct ledger. 5 minutes per week.
Manual re-entry and splitting. Average 4–6 hours per month for a business with daily supplier deliveries.
GDPR compliance
Staff data fully GDPR-compliant: encryption, access control, right to deletion built into the architecture.
Spreadsheets with staff data are not encrypted, not access-controlled, and hard to make GDPR-proof.
Mobile access
PWA — install as an app on iPhone or Android. Works offline for core features.
Excel/Google Sheets on mobile: cumbersome, not offline-capable, no push notifications.
Scalability
Adding a second location or ten new employees: seconds. All data and processes scale automatically.
Every new location = new spreadsheets, new folders, new WhatsApp groups. Complexity grows linearly.
Ready to switch?
14 days free. No credit card.
First employee active in 2 minutes. Data import included. Cancel monthly.