ADA Accommodation Spreadsheet vs HR Case-Management Software

You are probably here because you tried to price this and could not. It is worth being precise about what that finding is and is not: an observation about five named vendors on one date, not a claim about what any of them would quote you, and any of them may publish pricing later. Other vendors exist, and one of them may well list a price.

But it isn't the two-tier market most software categories run — a cheap self-serve plan alongside an enterprise sales motion — and among these five, between a sales call and a free one-request form, there was nothing to simply buy. The Workplace Accommodations Request & Records Workbook is built to sit in that gap: an owned file that computes against the record, at a one-time cost, with none of the per-seat pricing or the sales call.

What each approach is actually for

• A computed workbook documents the process and does the arithmetic on it. It carries the eight interactive-process stages per request, works out how long a request has sat without a documented contact, flags where similar requests got different answers, and scores whether a denial file has what it needs — all against fields you fill in yourself, in a file you keep.
• HR case-management software adds a system around the record. Centralized, permissioned storage; an access log the system writes itself; and, on some of these five, a live connection to leave administration. It answers "who can see this, who touched it, and can I prove it" — a different question than "what does this case need next."

Neither one makes the other pointless, and the honest version of this comparison has to admit what the vendors don't publish: with no rate card there is also no public feature matrix, so what any one platform computes out of the box is something only its own demo can tell you. Some of the five market reminders, deadline tracking and cross-case reporting. What can be said generally is that a platform is organized around custody of the record — who may see it, who touched it — while a workbook is organized around arithmetic on it. A workbook, in turn, has no access log it controls: a shared Google Sheet reliably tells you who changed a cell, and on some Workspace plans who opened it, but that view history is a setting rather than a guarantee.

The gap these five leave

At the free end, the Job Accommodation Network's Accommodation Process Documentation Log is a genuinely good one-request form covering the same eight stages this category is built around. Its ceiling is built into its shape: it documents one request at a time, with no roll-up across requests, no aging calculation against anything, and no dashboard. Our own free Single Accommodation Request Log sits on the same rung — one case, no signup — as a spreadsheet rather than a narrative form.

At the other end sit the five named platforms, each sold through a quote rather than a checkout. What that leaves is a middle with very little in it: an employer with too many requests for one narrative form, but not enough of a case for a sales cycle and per-seat licensing, has few packaged options. That gap, not a feature checklist, is the actual argument for an owned, computed file — and if a vendor does quote you a number that works, take it.

Where the software genuinely wins

This isn't a case for pretending the platforms don't earn their fee — for the right employer, they genuinely do:

• Role-based access. Permissions built into the system, so a manager sees only their own team's cases and HR sees the rest — not "whoever has the folder."
• An access log you cannot switch off. Google Sheets records who changed a cell, and Google Workspace can surface who viewed a file on some plans — but a personal Google account or a plain Excel file records no views at all, and where view history exists a user or an admin can turn it off. A platform logs access as a property of the system, and on a file this sensitive, who read it is the event you may need to account for.
• Reminders that arrive without being opened. A workbook can compute that a request has gone quiet, but somebody has to open it to find out. A platform can push the nudge to the case owner — which for a busy team is often the difference between a computed flag and one somebody acted on.
• Secure intake of medical documentation. Provider paperwork has to be kept confidential and separate from the personnel file. A platform can take that upload into a permissioned store; a workbook deliberately holds none of it, which means you still need somewhere disciplined to put it.
• Leave-administration integration. Offered by some of these five, per their own marketing: a live link between an accommodation case and a related FMLA or disability claim, so the same facts aren't entered twice into two systems.

Where the spreadsheet wins

• You own the file. No subscription keeps the record alive, and no vendor's shutdown or price increase puts it at risk.
• No per-seat cost. A one-time purchase, whether one person or several are involved in a case. Enterprise HR platforms are typically licensed per seat or per employee — none of these five publishes its terms, so treat that as the industry norm to ask about on the call, not as a stated fact about any of them.
• No vendor lock-in. The file is yours in a format you already have Excel or Google Sheets to open.
• The record outlives the subscription. This matters specifically here: under 29 C.F.R. § 1602.14, personnel records — which explicitly include requests for reasonable accommodation — must be preserved at least one year from the record or the personnel action, whichever is later, and kept in full until final resolution once a charge is filed or the EEOC or the Attorney General brings an action. A record that depends on an active subscription is a liability the moment that subscription lapses; an owned file has no such expiry. That's a federal floor — state law or your own retention policy may require longer.

Who each is genuinely for

Headcount is a rough proxy, not the real test — the real test is who's handling the cases and how many are open at once:

• One HR generalist or a small team, one location, a handful of open requests at a time — the arithmetic a computed workbook does (aging, parity, denial-completeness, retention) covers what that job needs, without a subscription.
• A multi-site or multi-state HR team where several people work the same cases, or where leave administration needs to see the same case without re-entering it, is genuinely better served by a platform built for that — and worth the sales call to find out what one of the named vendors would charge.

Side by side

Start with the owned record, add a platform when the job outgrows it

This is the honest sequence more than it's a case against the platforms. A single HR person or a small team handling a manageable number of requests doesn't need role-based access, an automatic audit trail or a live leave-administration feed — it needs a documented, computed record of what happened and when, kept in a file that's still readable in five years regardless of what any vendor does. When the caseload, the headcount handling it, or the number of systems that need to see the same case outgrow what one file and one person can track, that's the point a platform starts earning its fee — and by then, the sales call is worth having.

Document the case correctly either way

Whichever stack you eventually run, the case still needs the same underlying record: the interactive-process stages worked and dated, contacts logged, a decision with its evidence on file, and a retention date somebody can point to.

The Workplace Accommodations Request & Records Workbook builds that record across every open request — the aging and silence check, the parity check across decision-makers, the denial-completeness score, and the retention engine — in one Excel or Google Sheets file, with no diagnosis or condition field anywhere in it. For a single request, the free Single Accommodation Request Log is a no-signup way to try the same eight-stage approach before deciding whether the caseload calls for more.

And if the stages themselves are the part you want spelled out — including why no fixed response clock applies to a private employer — that is the subject of what the interactive process is.