Your Excel Brain Already Knows Salesforce: A RIA's Translation Guide

If you're a Registered Investment Advisor who lives in Excel, I have good news: you already know 80% of Salesforce. You just don't know that you know it yet.

I've spent the last 3 years helping RIAs move from "Excel chaos" to organized CRMs, and the biggest barrier isn't technical—it's translation. Once advisors realize that Salesforce is essentially Excel with superpowers (and without the crashes when row 65,536 gets moody), everything clicks.

The Rosetta Stone for Excel Users

Let's translate what you already know:

Your Excel Workbook = A Salesforce App

That massive "ClientTracking_v47_FINAL_FINAL_actually_final.xlsx" file with 15 sheets? That's essentially what Salesforce calls an app, just more stable and less likely to corrupt when Karen from compliance opens it.

Your Sheets = Objects

You know that "Clients" sheet where each row is a different client? In Salesforce, that's called an Object. Your "Accounts" sheet? Another Object. That "Meetings" tracker? Yep, Object.

Your Rows = Records

Row 234 with Bob and Sally Johnson's information? That's a Record in Salesforce. Same exact concept, just without the risk of accidentally sorting one column and destroying all your relationships.

Your Columns = Fields

Column B where you track AUM? That's a Field. Column C with phone numbers? Field. That custom column where you track whether they prefer phone or email for quarterly reviews? Custom Field.

Your VLOOKUP Formulas = Relationships

Remember spending three hours troubleshooting nested VLOOKUPs to connect client data to account data to meeting history? Salesforce calls these Relationships - think of them as built-in, never-break VLOOKUPs or (for you Power Query users) automatic joins that actually work. They don't break when someone inserts a column.

Real RIA Scenario: The Monday Morning Meeting Prep

Here's what I bet your Monday looks like in Excel:

1. Open three different spreadsheets
2. Run a filter for this week's client meetings
3. VLOOKUP client phone numbers from another sheet
4. Copy last meeting notes from yet another sheet
5. Pray nothing breaks
6. Print everything because you don't trust it to work on your tablet

Here's the same thing in Salesforce:

1. Click "This Week's Meetings" (a List View, which is just your filtered Excel view)
2. Everything's already connected
3. Works on your phone

The "Aha!" Moment: It Updates Everywhere

In Excel, when you update a client's phone number, you need to update it in:

• The main client sheet
• The contact list for your assistant
• The quarterly review tracker
• That other spreadsheet you forgot about

In Salesforce, you update it once. It's updated everywhere. No VLOOKUP required.

Your Comfort Zone Features Are All Here

Filters? They're called List Views, and they don't accidentally get saved and mess up everyone else's view.

Pivot Tables? Reports (like pivot tables for summaries and groupings) and Dashboards (your charts on steroids), except they auto-refresh and don't require an Excel guru to modify.

Conditional Formatting? Validation Rules, but they actually prevent bad data from being entered rather than just turning cells red after the fact.

Macros? Flows and Process Automation - like macros, except they're built to scale with your data model and handle updates more gracefully.

The One Big Difference That Matters

Here's what Salesforce does that Excel can't: multiple people can work in it at the same time without creating conflicting versions.

No more:

• "ClientList_Bob's Version_March.xlsx"
• "ClientList_Sarah's_Updates_DONOTDELETE.xlsx"
• "Copy of Copy of ClientList_RECOVERED.xlsx"

Just one source of truth that everyone can access simultaneously.

Try This One Thing Today

If you're still in Excel but Salesforce-curious, try this exercise:

1. Take your main client tracking spreadsheet
2. Write down the column headers
3. Those are your future Salesforce fields
4. The sheet name? That's your Object

Congratulations, you just designed your first Salesforce data model. You're already thinking like a Salesforce admin.

What's Next?

In our next post, we'll take your "Clients" spreadsheet and show you exactly how it becomes a Client object in Salesforce—and why you'll never lose data to a corrupted file again.

Have a specific Excel nightmare you're trying to solve? Drop me a note at ryan.closs@future-state.ai and I might feature it in an upcoming post.

About the Author: Ryan Closs helps RIAs modernize their operations through Salesforce and automation consulting. Ex-spreadsheet wrangler, automation enthusiast, and firm believer that compliance doesn't have to mean complexity.

P.S. - Still not convinced? Consider this: When was the last time you had to explain to a client why their data was in "ClientList_FINAL_v2_USE_THIS_ONE.xlsx" instead of the file you showed them last quarter? In Salesforce, that conversation never happens.