Between the spreadsheet and the industrial CMMS, there's almost all of a small business's maintenance.
"Maintenance management software" points to two distant worlds: a CMMS built for a department with crews, work orders and a spare-parts warehouse, and a tool that keeps the register of your assets and their deadlines. A small business almost always needs the second, and in some cases a well-kept spreadsheet is still enough. Here's how to tell which case you're in, what to ask a tool before paying for it, and what ToriSet does and doesn't do.
"Maintenance management software" points to two very different things
CMMS stands for Computerized Maintenance Management System: a piece of software for managing maintenance, born in departments where maintenance is a full-time trade. Its heart isn't the calendar but the work order — a request that turns into a job assigned to a technician, with the hours spent, the parts drawn from the warehouse and the cost that comes out of it. Around that revolve spare-parts stock levels, supplier contracts and dashboards with department-level indicators.
In most small businesses maintenance doesn't have a department: it has one person who keeps it in mind. The problem isn't routing a job between six technicians, it's knowing that the six-monthly extinguisher inspection is due in two weeks, that the compressor is at 460 hours out of the 500 before its service, and that the earthing system check dates back five years. It's a register-and-deadlines problem, not a work-order problem.
That's where the misunderstanding starts for anyone searching for "maintenance management software": you land on tools built for twenty maintenance technicians and conclude they're too complicated, or you stay on the spreadsheet because everything else looks oversized. In between sits the band that most small businesses actually need — a shared asset register, with deadlines calculated and documents attached — and it's the part people talk about least.
The seven things a small business actually needs
Before looking at price lists, it's worth writing down what the tool actually has to do. For a business keeping machines, vehicles and safety equipment in working order without a maintenance department, the list is short — and contains almost none of what CMMS platforms put on their front page.
- A list of assets with site, serial number and person in charge: without a register there's no deadline to calculate
- Deadlines calculated from the last job, not fixed dates you rewrite by hand every year
- Hour- or counter-based rules for what doesn't run on a calendar: compressor, forklift, generator
- Reminders that reach more than one person, with enough notice to book the maintenance technician
- Job history with outcome and attachments: on inspection day that's what's needed, not the next date
- Access for more than one person, from a phone too, without the file living on a single computer
- Import for the spreadsheet you already have: if redoing the register by hand costs a week, you don't redo it
Need by need: spreadsheet, ToriSet, industrial CMMS
The three columns aren't three tiers of the same product — they're three different perimeters. The cells marked "no" show where each of the three stops, and that's the most useful information in the table.
| Need | Spreadsheet | ToriSet | Industrial CMMS |
|---|---|---|---|
| List of assets with site and serial number | one row per asset, as long as someone updates it | one record per asset, with serial number, photo and attached documents | hierarchical register: plant, line, component |
| Calculating the next deadline | manual formulas, redone after every job | calculated from the last job: by months, by hours, or whichever comes first | preventive plans by calendar, by counter or on condition |
| Alerting whoever has to act | no one: you are the alert | email 30, 14, 7 and 1 day before, to you and to whoever has to act | notifications and assignment to technicians on shift |
| History and documents | overwritten cells, attachments in another folder | job history with outcome and attachments on the asset's record | history with hours, parts and cost per job |
| Work orders and spare-parts warehouse | no | no | yes: requests, assignments, stock levels and reordering |
| Department indicators (MTBF, MTTR) and ERP integration | no | no | yes — it's the reason it exists |
| What it costs | already in the office package you have | Free: 10 products and 3 people; Pro €9/month, Ultimate €29/month | typically a per-user licence, plus configuration and training |
ToriSet prices exclude VAT, current as of September 2026: the Free plan never expires and doesn't ask for a credit card. There's no single price list for CMMS platforms — the most common form is a per-user licence, with configuration and training on top — so you won't find figures here. The "no" cells aren't gaps to fill: they're the boundaries of three tools built for different jobs.
When a spreadsheet is still enough
A spreadsheet is enough when the assets are few and stable, only one person is tracking them, and no one asks you to produce the history. Ten or fifteen rows, one or two deadlines per row, all on the calendar: a tidy file, updated after every job and printed out now and then, holds up fine — and it beats a tool that gets bought and abandoned after three months.
The written form, after all, is required by the law, not by the software. In Italy, the D.Lgs 81/2008, art. 71 c. 9 requires check results to be recorded in writing and at least the last three years' worth to be kept and made available to the supervisory bodies: it's a requirement about content and retention, not about the tool. A printable spreadsheet satisfies the written-form requirement, and no software makes valid a piece of data that isn't in it.
The spreadsheet stops being enough when one of three things happens: the people who need to see the deadlines become two, and the file lives on only one of their computers; the intervals stop all being calendar-based, because the compressor's operating hours don't fit on a calendar; or the history is needed and you discover the last-date cell has been overwritten four times. The real signal isn't the number of assets — it's the first deadline that passed without anyone noticing.
When you genuinely need an industrial CMMS
A CMMS is the right choice when maintenance is an organised activity, not a list of deadlines: there's a crew to assign work to, requests come in from production and need routing, spare parts have a warehouse with stock levels and reorder points, and the cost of every stoppage has to be booked somewhere. If those four sentences describe your business, the rest of this guide has little to offer you.
The other two signals are indicators and integrations. If someone asks you for the MTBF (mean time between failures) and the MTTR (mean time to repair) by line, the share of preventive maintenance in the total, or the maintenance cost per unit produced, you need data on hours, parts and stoppages — and only a tool built to collect that data will collect it. The same goes if registers and orders have to travel to the ERP or the production management system.
In these cases, the cost isn't just the subscription fee. A CMMS has to be configured: hierarchical registers, maintenance cycles, warehouse, users and permissions, and then training for whoever will use it every day. It's a project, with an owner and a timeline. Starting one for fifteen assets and two people is the fastest way to end up, three months later, with an empty CMMS and the old spreadsheet open again.
Where ToriSet fits, and what it doesn't do
ToriSet covers the band in the middle: from a dozen to a few hundred assets, deadlines coming from a standard or from the manufacturer's manual, more than one person who needs to see them. Every asset has its own record with site, serial number, photo and attached documents; deadlines are calculated from the last logged job — by months, by hours of use, or "whichever comes first" — and reminders go out by email 30, 14, 7 and 1 day before, to you and to whoever has to act. Jobs stay in the history with outcome and attachments, and a QR code on the asset opens its record for whoever is using it.
What ToriSet doesn't do matters just as much as the rest, because it's the reason another tool is sometimes the right answer: it doesn't manage work orders or requests to route to a crew, it doesn't keep a spare-parts warehouse, it doesn't do cost accounting per job, and it doesn't calculate indicators like MTBF and MTTR. It certifies nothing: periodic inspections remain with authorised bodies, the maintenance technician remains the maintenance technician, and the obligations remain the employer's.
The plans, plainly: Free covers 10 products and 3 people, never expires and doesn't ask for a credit card; Pro reaches 50 products and 5 people for €9/month + VAT; Ultimate reaches 250 products and 10 people for €29/month + VAT. Parts that sit inside another product — a system's pump, a boat's engine — don't count against the plan limit: a detailed register costs no more than a summary one.
"Free" almost never means free forever
Behind that word are three different things: a time-limited trial that asks for a card after thirty days, a free plan for a single user — useless if the point was sharing the register — and an installed program that no longer gets updated. The questions to ask beforehand are always four: how many people can I invite, how many assets fit, can I export my data back out, and what happens to the register if I stop paying. The mirror-image mistake is buying the most complete option "to be safe": a tool nobody updates produces less than the same spreadsheet did before.
How to move on from the spreadsheet, in an afternoon
The migration isn't a project: it's the spreadsheet you already have, put into columns and imported. The useful columns are the ones from an ordinary deadline schedule — asset, site, job, interval, last date, person in charge.
- 01
Put what you have into columns
just once, an hour if the spreadsheet is tidy
whoever keeps the schedule today
- 02
Upload the file in Excel or CSV
one import a month on the Free plan, three on Pro
whoever administers the group
- 03
Confirm what ToriSet proposes, row by row
right after the import, before saving the register
whoever knows the machines
- 04
Write down where each interval comes from and who's responsible
asset by asset, once
the maintenance manager
- 05
Invite people and let the reminders start
from then on, without having to think about it
whoever administers the group
The minimum columns and the three calculation rules — by calendar, by hours, "whichever comes first" — are exactly the content of the guide on the maintenance schedule: if your spreadsheet is already set up that way, the import becomes a mechanical step. If it isn't, it's worth fixing in the spreadsheet first, where you can move quickly.
On inspection day you need the history, not the next date
Whichever tool you choose, what gets asked for is the outcome of checks in writing — at least the last three years' worth, kept available to the supervisory bodies (in Italy, D.Lgs 81/2008, art. 71 c. 9) — plus the reports of periodic inspections carried out by third parties, which remain their documents. If a piece of equipment works away from the site, the record of its last check has to travel with it (art. 71 c. 10). Before choosing, check that the tool can hand you those papers back quickly: that's the only requirement that really counts on that day.
This guide is informational material: it does not replace the standards cited, the manufacturer's manual or the judgement of a qualified technician. ToriSet organises deadlines and documents; it does not certify compliance.
What actually changes between the spreadsheet you have and a shared register
It isn't a matter of extra features: it's the four things that get lost first in a spreadsheet — sharing, recalculation, alerting and documents.
A spreadsheet with the deadlines, on the computer of whoever keeps it
A shared register: whoever opens the record sees what's due and who did the last job
You recalculate the next date yourself, after every job
ToriSet calculates it from the last job: by months, by hours, or whichever comes first
The reminder is a sticky note, or one person's memory
An email 30, 14, 7 and 1 day before, to you and to whoever has to act
Job sheets and invoices in a folder, to go looking for when needed
Attached to the job, on the asset's record, with the outcome written down
What we get asked most.
What is a CMMS?
CMMS stands for Computerized Maintenance Management System: maintenance management software built around the work order. It logs requests, assigns them to technicians, deducts parts from the warehouse, adds up hours and costs, and derives indicators from that such as MTBF (mean time between failures) and MTTR (mean time to repair). It's the tool of a maintenance department: almost all of its features assume a crew, a warehouse and someone running them.
Is there free maintenance management software?
Free plans exist, but read the fine print: some are time-limited trials that ask for a card after thirty days, others limit access to a single user — exactly what you needed to share — and others still are installed programs that no longer get updated. A free plan is useful when the limit is stated upfront and doesn't expire: ToriSet, for example, has a Free plan with 10 products and 3 people that doesn't ask for a credit card. The questions to ask are always four: how many people, how many assets, can I export my data, what happens to the register if I stop paying.
When is it worth switching from Excel to maintenance software?
When one of three things happens: the people who need to see the deadlines become more than one; the intervals stop all being calendar-based, because hours of use and counters come into it ("12 months or 500 hours, whichever comes first"); or you need the job history and discover the spreadsheet only keeps the last date. The number of assets matters less than it seems: the real signal is the first deadline that passed without anyone noticing.
Can I import my Excel file?
Yes. From "Import" you upload the file in Excel or CSV as it is: ToriSet reads the columns, recognises assets, sites and last-job dates, and proposes the register for you to confirm row by row. The Free plan includes one import a month, Pro three. The useful columns are the ones from an ordinary deadline schedule: asset, site, job, interval, last date and, if there is one, person in charge.
Does a small business need a CMMS?
It does if maintenance is already organised as an activity in its own right: job requests to route, technicians to assign work to, a spare-parts warehouse with stock levels, costs to book and indicators to produce. If instead the job is keeping machines, vehicles and safety equipment working with their deadlines met, a CMMS is out of proportion to the problem: it needs configuration nobody has time to maintain, and within a few months the spreadsheet is back open next to it.
So where does ToriSet fit in?
ToriSet sits in the band in the middle, and it helps you keep to the deadlines set by standards and manuals: a record for every asset, the next date calculated from the last logged job, reminders by email 30, 14, 7 and 1 day before to whoever has to act, the history with outcome and attachments. It doesn't manage work orders, a spare-parts warehouse or cost per job, and it does not certify compliance: periodic inspections remain with authorised bodies and the obligations remain the employer's.
Related guides
See them allThirty assets, four people, a single spreadsheet.
Before evaluating a CMMS, try the simplest move: import the spreadsheet you already have, invite the people who work with you, and let the dates calculate themselves from the last job. Free: 10 products and 3 people, no credit card.
No credit card · The Free plan stays free