Basenorm vs Excel & Word
When to graduate from spreadsheets
Excel and Word can get you to your first ISO 27001 certificate — many organisations do exactly that. Basenorm is what you want when maintaining the ISMS after certification starts consuming more of your team's time than earning it did, and when your compliance scope expands beyond a single framework.
Why Basenorm
Three things that don't change, whoever we're compared with
Unified Control Framework
Define every control once in the Unified Control Library and map it automatically across ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIS2, DORA, AVG, BIO and the frameworks you will add next. No duplicate evidence, no parallel workbooks.
Map your own frameworks to any standard
Internal policies, supplier standards, vertical regulations — bring them into Basenorm alongside the ISO, SOC and EU catalogues. Your frameworks are first-class citizens, not forced into someone else's taxonomy.
AI-first and MCP-native, no legacy
AskNorman is built on current-generation LLMs connected through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). A modern AI workflow from day one, not a chatbot bolted onto a legacy GRC stack.
When to choose which
Choose Excel & Word if
- You're pursuing your first ISO 27001 certification with a small, single-compliance-lead team.
- Free tooling (you already have Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace) is a non-negotiable budget constraint.
- Complete flexibility and full local control of your documents matters more than automation.
- You want zero vendor lock-in: your files are yours, in your drive, in your format.
- Your framework scope is narrow (one standard) and your evidence volume is low.
Choose Basenorm if
- Your framework scope is expanding (ISO 27001 plus SOC 2 plus NIS2 plus DORA) and you're copying evidence between spreadsheets.
- Your compliance team is growing past one person and version conflicts are becoming routine.
- You have at least one audit per year and pre-audit prep eats entire weeks.
- Maintaining the ISMS consumes more than 15 hours per week for one person.
- You want automated audit trails, not a folder full of versioned documents with unclear provenance.
Feature-by-feature comparison
Supported · Partial · Not available
| Feature | Basenorm | Excel & Word |
|---|---|---|
ISO 27001 support (first-time certification feasibility) | ||
Multi-framework support without duplicate work In spreadsheets every new framework is a separate tab with manual mapping. | ||
Automated audit trail (who changed what, when, why) SharePoint/OneDrive version history exists but is not compliance-specific. | ||
Evidence linked to controls In spreadsheets evidence lives in a folder; the link to controls is manual. | ||
Continuous monitoring and gap detection | ||
Statement of Applicability management Can be built as a spreadsheet; maintenance is manual. | ||
Risk register with relationships to controls Spreadsheet works; relationships between sheets are fragile. | ||
Cross-framework control mapping automation | ||
AI assistant for drafting and evidence interpretation | ||
Governance Graph (linked entities) | ||
Subscription cost Excel and Word are free if you already have M365 or Google Workspace; Basenorm is a paid SaaS. | ||
Works offline Excel and Word work offline; Basenorm requires connectivity. | ||
Familiar to every team member Everyone knows Excel; Basenorm requires brief onboarding. | ||
Collaboration at scale (5+ contributors) M365 co-authoring helps but version conflicts grow with team size. | ||
Real-time gap detection | ||
Evidence freshness tracking | ||
Audit-ready reports (auto-generated) Can produce in Excel; requires manual effort each audit cycle. | ||
Scales past ~100 controls and multiple frameworks Technically possible in Excel; maintenance burden grows exponentially. | ||
Vendor lock-in Spreadsheets have zero lock-in; Basenorm provides exports but you're in a SaaS platform. | ||
No vendor risk review needed Excel and Word require no vendor assessment; Basenorm does as a SaaS supplier. |
Comparison information is based on publicly available sources as of April 2026. Vendor features and pricing change frequently; please verify with each vendor before making a decision.
What spreadsheets do well
Excel and Word do more than most compliance teams admit. A well-built Excel workbook can hold the controls list, Statement of Applicability, risk register and evidence inventory. A Word document can hold every policy. For a team pursuing first-time ISO 27001 certification with a narrow scope, a small team and low evidence volume, spreadsheets get the job done — free, flexible, familiar and without vendor lock-in. Nothing beats zero licence cost and complete control of your own files.
- Zero marginal cost if you already have M365 or Google Workspace.
- Full flexibility: any structure, any template, any format.
- No vendor lock-in: your files, your drive, your format forever.
- Familiar: every team member knows Excel and Word.
When spreadsheets start to break
Spreadsheet ISMS typically breaks around four triggers, usually overlapping: (1) framework scope expands beyond one standard and you find yourself copying evidence across workbooks, (2) the compliance team grows past one person and version conflicts or stale copies appear, (3) audits become annual or more frequent and pre-audit prep eats whole weeks, and (4) evidence volume grows past ~100 items and tracking freshness by hand becomes unreliable.
- Trigger 1: multi-framework scope (ISO 27001 plus SOC 2, NIS2, DORA).
- Trigger 2: compliance team grows past a single lead.
- Trigger 3: audits become frequent; pre-audit sprint is the bottleneck.
- Trigger 4: ~100+ evidence items with freshness requirements.
What Basenorm automates that Excel cannot
The core difference is semantic: Basenorm models controls, risks, assets, policies and evidence as linked entities in the Governance Graph, with AskNorman interpreting uploaded documents and mapping them to controls automatically. Cross-framework mapping is automatic, audit-ready reports generate on demand, evidence freshness is tracked continuously, and AI-drafted control changes arrive within 24-48 hours when frameworks update. Excel cannot do any of these without extensive manual labour.
- Governance Graph: semantic relationships between all ISMS entities.
- Automatic cross-framework mapping via the Unified Control Library.
- AI-driven evidence interpretation through AskNorman.
- Continuous monitoring and gap detection, not periodic reviews.
- Audit-ready reports generated on demand, not assembled under pressure.
The migration path from spreadsheets
Moving from spreadsheets to Basenorm is usually not a cutover but a gradual upload. Export your controls list, Statement of Applicability, risk register and policy documents from Excel and Word, upload them to Basenorm, and AskNorman performs semantic analysis to map each row and document into the Governance Graph. Your spreadsheet work is not thrown away — it becomes the seed of your new control library. Most teams complete the upload inside two weeks and reach feature parity with their old spreadsheet ISMS in under a month.
- Export existing controls, SoA, risk register and policies from Excel and Word.
- Upload to Basenorm; AskNorman maps each artefact semantically.
- Parallel-run until you trust the new system, then switch over.
- Typical timeline: two weeks to upload, one month to full parity.
Upgrading from spreadsheets
Moving from Excel & Word to Basenorm
If you built your first ISO 27001 ISMS in Excel and Word and it got you certified, congratulations — that approach works. The trigger for moving to Basenorm is almost never the first certification; it is the second one. When SOC 2, NIS2, DORA or EU AI Act joins the scope and you notice yourself copying controls and evidence between workbooks, that is the signal that the spreadsheet model has hit its limit. The migration itself is low-risk: upload existing spreadsheets and Word policies to Basenorm, let AskNorman analyse and map them, run Basenorm in parallel with your spreadsheets until you trust the new view, then retire the spreadsheets. Most teams see workload drop from roughly 15-20 hours per week to 3-5 hours per week once the platform is in steady-state operation.
Frequently asked questions
Disclosure: Basenorm is the platform we build. We aim for accuracy and fairness, cite public sources where possible, and encourage you to verify every claim with the respective vendor.