Comparisons
CISAPP vs spreadsheet for third-party risk
How far a spreadsheet takes you in vendor risk management, and the point at which it costs more than a platform: a comparison on verifiable criteria.
TL;DR
A spreadsheet works while the portfolio is small, nobody needs audit evidence and no regulation applies to third-party risk. As soon as a text requires an audit trail (NIS2, DORA, ISO 27001, GDPR), the spreadsheet stops being a compliance tool: it keeps neither dated history, nor the evidence-to-control link, nor access traceability.
What does a spreadsheet actually do?
A spreadsheet is a register: it stores a state at a point in time, with no guarantee of who wrote it or when. That is enough for an inventory of third parties and a status tracker, which is why most TPRM programmes start there. The difficulty does not show up at the start — it shows up at the first audit, or the first incident at a vendor.
What exactly is being compared?
| Criterion | Spreadsheet | CISAPP |
|---|---|---|
| Third-party inventory | Yes | Yes, with criticality and business activity links |
| Sending and chasing questionnaires | Manual, by email | Tracked campaigns, automated reminders |
| Audit trail | No guarantee: every cell is rewritable | Dated history, author, versions |
| Evidence-to-control link | By hand, in a shared folder | Evidence tied to control and framework |
| Periodic reassessment | Calendar reminder | Monitoring cycle by criticality |
| Tier-2 dependencies | Hard to represent | Dependency mapping |
| Direct cost | Near zero | Subscription |
| Indirect cost | Collection and consolidation time | Initial configuration |
When does a spreadsheet stop being enough?
Three signals, independent of portfolio size:
- A text requires evidence. ISO 27001 expects dated reassessments under control A.5.22; NIS2 and DORA require documented control of the supply chain. See NIS2 and DORA.
- Several people contribute. Once procurement, security and legal all write in the same file, the reference version becomes uncertain.
- Reassessment becomes continuous. An annual cycle fits a calendar; criticality-driven monitoring does not run by hand.
How CISAPP replaces the spreadsheet without discarding it
Importing the existing portfolio is the first step: your columns become vendor record fields and nothing is lost. Security questionnaires are then sent from the platform, answers stay attached to the third party and to the questionnaire version, and collected evidence feeds your compliance frameworks directly.
Read next: TPRM platform selection criteria and the TPRM SaaS solution.
FAQ
Yes, up to a point. A spreadsheet is enough to hold an inventory of third parties and track a few dozen rows. It reaches its limit when you must prove who answered what, on which date, against which version of the questionnaire, and tie that answer to a regulatory control.
Sources
- ISO/IEC 27001:2022 — Information security management systems — ISO, 2022-10-25
- Directive (EU) 2022/2555 (NIS 2) — EUR-Lex, 2022-12-14
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