Basenorm vs Excel & Word
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.
Hosted in the Netherlands. Your data stays in the EU.Basenorm in brief
- Vendor
- Dutch companyEuropean by origin
- Hosting
- The NetherlandsMicrosoft Azure, West Europe
- Lead frameworks
- ISO 42001 and ISO 27001With NIS2, DORA, GDPR and the AI Act
- Pricing
- Public, from €250 per monthFoundation layer
01 / Why Basenorm
What stays the same, whoever we are compared with.
ISO 42001 and ISO 27001 on one library
Your AI management system builds on your ISMS. Define a control once and see which standards it counts for, and which not.
EU-native by default
A Dutch vendor, hosted in the Netherlands, with a database per organisation. No opt-in needed for EU hosting.
AI that assists, people who decide
AskNorman explains, drafts and searches, in Basenorm or in your own assistant through MCP. Your team assesses and decides.
02 / When to choose which
An honest choice.
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.
03 / Feature by feature
Side by side.
| Topic | Basenorm | Excel & Word |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 27001 support (first-time certification feasibility) | Supported | Supported |
| Multi-framework support without duplicate workIn spreadsheets every new framework is a separate tab with manual mapping. | Supported | Not available |
| Automated audit trail (who changed what, when, why)SharePoint/OneDrive version history exists but is not compliance-specific. | Supported | Partial |
| Evidence linked to controlsIn spreadsheets evidence lives in a folder; the link to controls is manual. | Supported | Not available |
| Continuous monitoring and gap detection | Supported | Not available |
| Statement of Applicability managementCan be built as a spreadsheet; maintenance is manual. | Supported | Partial |
| Risk register with relationships to controlsSpreadsheet works; relationships between sheets are fragile. | Supported | Not available |
| Cross-framework control mapping automation | Supported | Not available |
| AI assistant for drafting and evidence interpretation | Supported | Not available |
| Governance Graph (linked entities) | Supported | Not available |
| Subscription costExcel and Word are free if you already have M365 or Google Workspace; Basenorm is a paid SaaS. | Not available | Supported |
| Works offlineExcel and Word work offline; Basenorm requires connectivity. | Partial | Supported |
| Familiar to every team memberEveryone knows Excel; Basenorm requires brief onboarding. | Partial | Supported |
| Collaboration at scale (5+ contributors)M365 co-authoring helps but version conflicts grow with team size. | Supported | Partial |
| Real-time gap detection | Supported | Not available |
| Evidence freshness tracking | Supported | Not available |
| Audit-ready reports (auto-generated)Can produce in Excel; requires manual effort each audit cycle. | Supported | Partial |
| Scales past ~100 controls and multiple frameworksTechnically possible in Excel; maintenance burden grows exponentially. | Supported | Partial |
| Vendor lock-inSpreadsheets have zero lock-in; Basenorm provides exports but you're in a SaaS platform. | Partial | Not available |
| No vendor risk review neededExcel and Word require no vendor assessment; Basenorm does as a SaaS supplier. | Not available | Supported |
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.
04 / In detail
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.
05 / Questions
Frequently asked
questions.
Can I really pass ISO 27001 with just Excel and Word?
Yes. Many small organisations do. The spreadsheet approach works best for a first certification with a narrow scope, a small compliance team and modest evidence volume. It becomes unsustainable when scope expands or the team grows, not when certification fails.
Is Basenorm overkill for a first ISO 27001 certification?
Often, yes, if your scope is ISO 27001 only and you have budget constraints. A platform becomes worth it once your scope expands (NIS2, DORA, SOC 2) or your compliance workload exceeds 15 hours per week per person.
When should I move from Excel to a platform?
Common triggers: you've added a second framework, your compliance team is more than one person, you have an audit at least once a year, or you're maintaining more than ~100 evidence items. Any two of these together usually means the spreadsheet model is costing more than a platform would.
Can I import my existing Excel ISMS into Basenorm?
Yes. Export your controls list, Statement of Applicability, risk register and policy documents, upload to Basenorm, and AskNorman analyses each one and maps it semantically to the Unified Control Library. Your spreadsheet investment becomes the seed of the new system.
Does Basenorm replace Excel and Word entirely?
Not entirely. You'll still use Word for drafting long-form policies (which Basenorm can manage via document upload) and Excel for ad-hoc analysis. What Basenorm replaces is the ISMS backbone: the controls list, SoA, risk register, evidence tracking and framework mapping.
How much time does Basenorm save compared to spreadsheets?
For teams with a multi-framework ISMS and regular audits, typical reduction is from 15-20 hours per week in spreadsheet maintenance to 3-5 hours per week inside the platform. Single-framework first-time certification sees smaller savings because the spreadsheet model is genuinely efficient at that scale.
Book a demo
Compare it in your own context.
In a demo we look at your frameworks and how Basenorm fits next to what you use today.
- Which frameworks you run now and next.
- How ISO 42001 builds on your ISO 27001.
- What moving your controls and evidence involves.
Hosted in the Netherlands. Your data stays in the EU.
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.