If you’ve ever spent hours inside a Word document trying to build a clean, readable grid for tracking deal terms, lender responses, or diligence items… you know the pain.
Here are five reasons Term Sheets built in Word are the productivity tax you didn’t know you were paying—especially in private markets where precision, speed, and collaboration are everything.
All form, no function
Word tables may look structured, but beneath the surface, they’re just static text boxes. Want to sort by column? Filter by status? Run a quick calculation? You’re out of luck. Every update is manual, and each change risks throwing the whole layout off. Word simply wasn’t built for structured, interactive data.
Fighting the format
Keeping a Word table clean and readable takes more effort than it should. One long entry or slight adjustment can throw off the layout—column widths shift, rows stretch, and page breaks appear in the wrong places. Instead of focusing on content, you find yourself spending valuable time tweaking spacing and alignment. Add versioning to the mix, and you’re constantly fixing formatting just to keep the grid usable.
Redlines Wreck Tables
Word’s “track changes” feature is a lifesaver for drafting—until it hits a table. Edits from multiple parties often cause rows to misalign, text to shift, or formatting to break entirely. What should be a simple markup process turns into a formatting cleanup job. Worse, key changes can get buried in the chaos, increasing the risk of oversight.
“It isn’t just us, my lenders love [online Term Sheets]. In the same way that it is zero input at our end, they also automatically have digital records of each version on the platform. So they can collaborate in real time and track versions of the grid without any confusion at their end.”
Lower mid-cap buy out fund.
Static in dynamic deals
Deals change. Frequently. Word grids don’t. They don’t support linked data, formulas, or live updates across documents. You can’t track who changed what, roll up summaries, or even spot inconsistencies without manual review. In a workflow that demands speed and accuracy, static documents are a drag on momentum.
Collaboration Chaos
So your process starts with a clean document. But it won’t stay that way for long.
Every lender returns a different version with markups. There’s no centralized version of record, no visibility into cell-level edits, and no efficient way to compare changes across lenders.
What should be a high-value, collaborative process turns into a version-control nightmare. Word isn’t built for structured feedback or multi-party negotiation.
So Why Do We Still Use Them?
Because they’re familiar. Because they “work.” Because everyone else does. But in 2025, there are better tools—ones designed for deals, collaboration, and clarity. If you’re still running critical workflows through static Word tables, it’s worth asking:
What’s the cost of doing things the old way—and how much more effective could you be with the right tools?
Termgrid is a purpose built system for debt finance processes. Term sheets are digitized, with heatmap and redline functionality to enable you to quickly and efficiently compare across versions and deals.
You can read more about our term sheet functionality here.
Spoiler alert! You can still work offline in Word and upload to our platform to share and record it digitally. Find out more now.
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