Comparison
TrueCarbon vs spreadsheets & paper MRV
Almost every carbon programme starts on spreadsheets. Here's specifically where that breaks down as a programme scales or heads toward verification — and where spreadsheets are still a perfectly reasonable choice.
Dimension by dimension
| Dimension | Spreadsheets / Paper MRV | TrueCarbon dMRV |
|---|---|---|
| Farmer / participant registration | Manually entered, no duplicate check across sheets or field teams | Duplicate detection on national ID, name similarity and GPS proximity at the point of registration |
| Plot boundaries | Hand-drawn, estimated, or a single GPS pin with no polygon | GPS-verified polygon with automatic overlap detection against existing plots |
| Photo evidence | Gallery uploads — no way to confirm when or where a photo was actually taken | In-app capture only, GPS-locked, timestamped, EXIF-validated before it's accepted |
| Approvals | Ad hoc sign-off over email or WhatsApp, rarely with a documented reason | Structured L1/L2 dual approval, every rejection carries a reason, nothing bypasses the workflow |
| Audit trail | Whatever the last saved version of the file shows | Append-only, immutable record of every submit, approval and rejection with actor and timestamp |
| Offline fieldwork | Paper forms collected in the field, transcribed later — delay and transcription errors both common | Offline-first mobile app; data is captured on-site and syncs automatically once back in range |
| Verifier readiness | Evidence assembled ad hoc right before an audit — gaps surface late, when they're expensive to fix | Continuously verification-ready; export a registry-mapped evidence package at any time |
| Reporting | Manually compiled and reconciled across multiple files | One-click Excel, CSV and GeoJSON exports, live dashboards per programme and district |
| Scaling past a pilot | Breaks down once you're past a few hundred participants or more than one field team | Built multi-tenant and role-based from the start — the same platform runs one pilot or fifty |
Where spreadsheets still make sense
A spreadsheet is a perfectly fine tool for a small, internal pilot that's testing a methodology before committing to anything — a handful of plots, one field team, no plan yet to submit for verification. The problems above show up specifically once a programme starts scaling toward registration, adds more than one field team, or needs evidence that a verifier will actually trust. If you're not there yet, you probably don't need us yet either.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to migrate all my historical spreadsheet data to switch to TrueCarbon?
No. Most programmes start logging new registrations, plots and events in TrueCarbon going forward and keep historical spreadsheet records as an archive. We can also help import existing participant and plot data as a one-time migration if you want a single system of record from day one.
Is TrueCarbon overkill for a small pilot programme?
It depends on your registry ambitions. If you're running a handful of plots purely to test a methodology internally, a spreadsheet can be enough for a few weeks. If you intend to submit that data for verification or scale it into a full programme, the evidence gaps spreadsheets create tend to surface exactly when you can least afford them — during the audit.
What can spreadsheets still do better than a dMRV platform?
Ad hoc analysis and one-off internal reporting — pulling a quick pivot table for a board update, for example. TrueCarbon exports clean data specifically so you can still do that analysis in Excel; it just doesn't rely on Excel as the system of record for evidence that needs to survive verifier scrutiny.
How long does it take to move a live programme from spreadsheets to TrueCarbon?
Configuring a programme's field schema typically takes days, not months, since it's JSON configuration rather than custom development. The bigger variable is field team onboarding to the mobile app, which we support directly during rollout.
See it from another angle
Still running your programme on spreadsheets?
We'll walk through exactly what would move over, and what wouldn't need to change on day one.