Excel vs mySilva: harvesting records for companies
Plenty of harvesting and forest management companies in Latvia still run their cut blocks, prices and records in Excel. It's familiar, but as volumes grow so do the errors, the out-of-date prices and the missing documents. This article compares a typical Excel workflow with a dedicated platform such as mySilva for companies.
Where Excel still helps
- Quick notes and one-off calculations on small volumes.
- Single-use tables that are easy to email.
- A flexible structure when you don't need anything map-based.
Where Excel starts holding harvesting back
- Prices — every team has its own copy, and buyers' price lists go out of date every week.
- Distances and logistics — nothing links the cut block, the roadside landing and the buyer's mill yard.
- Work orders — felling, forwarding and the landing each live in a different file.
- Documents — felling permits from the State Forest Service (VMD), waybills and mill measurement reports are hard to find by cut block.
Side-by-side comparison
| Task | Excel | mySilva |
|---|---|---|
| Forest register and cadastral data | Typed in by hand or pulled from a separate export | Stands from the State Forest Register and VMD felling permit import in one workspace |
| Buyer prices | Copied tables, often out of date | Price lists imported from Excel, PDF or scans; versions, acceptance rules and comparison with estimated haul distance |
| Harvest planning | Rows and emails | Tree tallying, assortment forecast and a work-order wizard with cut list and PDF |
| Field and landing records | Separate sheets | Operators' daily reports on the phone (works offline), landing stock tied to the work order |
| Documents and delivery | Folders and PDFs in email | Trips logged from the driver's phone, mySilva waybill PDF and a document archive per cut block |
| Measurement and finance | Manual cross-checking between files | Mill measurement CSV import matched to trips, settlements, profit and loss per work order |
When it's worth switching
If your team already runs several cut blocks at once, compares buyers regularly or loses time hunting for documents, digital records pay for themselves faster than yet another Excel template. mySilva is built for harvesting companies in Latvia — from register data through to mill measurements and settlements.
Next step
Have a look at mySilva for companies and apply for the free 2026 pilot on the same page. If prices are your biggest headache, start with the price lists module.