Spreadsheets: Excel files your bakers can use

Most small businesses keep their real work in spreadsheets: price lists, orders, expenses, customers. Your bakers can read them, work out exact numbers, make new ones and fill them in, row by row.

Which tool for which job

• Ask about a sheet: the Read a spreadsheet utensil. In a baker chat, add the file with the table button next to the message box, or keep it in your Kitchen folder.
• Get a total, an average or a top 10: the same utensil. Granny does the sums on this PC.
• Make a new sheet, or a copy with changes: the Change a spreadsheet utensil.
• Keep a running log: the Add to a spreadsheet step in a recipe. It adds one row each bake.
• Do the same job for every row: the Row by row step in a recipe.
• See it as charts: a report, which needs no AI at all.
• Look things up in a price list: the Pantry.

The Pantry and the utensil do different jobs. The Pantry looks things up: it finds the few pieces closest to a question, which is perfect for "How much is the rye loaf?". It only ever sees those pieces, so it can't add up a whole sheet. The utensil adds things up, because it goes through every row.

Exact numbers

AI models often get long sums wrong when they read rows themselves. So your baker doesn't add anything up. It asks, and Granny works out the answer on your PC with plain arithmetic.

Every result also says what it left out, and your baker should tell you:

• A cell that isn't a number, like "n/a" or "12 lei", is named with its row.
• Empty cells are counted and mentioned.
• A total row at the bottom is left out, so nothing is counted twice.

Only the rows and results your baker asks for go to the AI, not the whole file. With a baker's private details filter on, details such as email addresses are hidden from the AI there too. Hidden sheets are never read.

Your originals are safe

Changes go into a new copy unless you say otherwise:

• Replacing a file always asks you first, with no "always allow". Granny keeps the previous version, up to the last 5.
• A recipe can't replace a file without asking. The one exception is Add to a spreadsheet, because adding to that file is the job you gave it. It keeps the previous version each time as well.
• Formulas are never written or changed. A new row leaves a formula column empty, and Granny tells you, so you can copy the formula down in Excel.
• Text is always saved as text, so something like =1+1 from a model can never run.

Close the file in Excel first. Reading works while it's open, but Excel locks the file against saving. Granny tells you when that happens, and your file stays as it was.

Row by row

Add a Row by row step, pick a baker and say what to do with each row, for example "Write a short product description". Granny adds the row's columns for you, so you don't have to mention them.

Each answer goes in its own column in a copy of the file. A baker with answer fields gets one column per field. Rows are baked one at a time, and the timeline shows how far along it is and what it's costing.

Because every row is its own AI call, a big sheet can cost real money, so each bake has two limits you set:

• Most rows in one bake. Start small, and check the first answers before you bake the rest.
• Spending limit. Granny stops and saves before going over it.

Stopping and carrying on

Granny saves every 10 rows, and whenever a bake stops. Press Stop, close the app or lose your internet, and baking again carries on with the rows that have no answer yet. Rows already done aren't baked or paid for twice. The one row in progress when you press Stop is the exception: its answer is lost, so it's baked again.

Baking a different sheet with the same name starts a new numbered copy, so last month's answers stay as they are. Changing even one cell of the sheet counts as different, so all its rows are baked again.

Granny's rule of thumb: taste before you serve. A taste test bakes only the first 3 rows, so you see the answers and the cost before you pay for the whole sheet.