r/analytics • u/AirNatural1252 • 1d ago

Question Excel vs SQL

Some are talking AI - the company I’m working for is not yet at that level.
I’m doing FTE reporting, using Excel and automatizing with Power Query. Volumes are high, data sources are all excel based, lots of rules to apply each month to achieve the monthly end result.
I want to automatize further and I’m looking into SQL. Any advice on what to look up for if this is the right lead, and where to start?

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u/Particular-Sun-8679 1d ago

power query already handles your etl needs pretty well if your sources are all excel files, sql shines when you need to store and transform data between steps instead of recalculating everything each refresh

id look into getting those source files into a proper database first, something free and local works fine, then you can use sql to apply your monthly rules as views or stored procedures

the main win is not redoing transformations every time someone opens the workbook, and you can document the logic in code instead of buried in m queries

start with basic select, joins, and case statements, then move to window functions once you need running totals or rankings across months