What a cooperative can run on a group chat and a spreadsheet

Before a cooperative buys software, it usually already has the two tools it needs: a messaging group and a shared spreadsheet. Used properly, they cover most of what a young cooperative has to track in its first year.

What the group is for, and what it is not

A messaging group is good for notice, not for record. Announce the meeting there; keep the minutes somewhere else. Groups scroll, and a decision that only exists in a chat thread will be disputed within six months.

The three lists worth keeping

Members, with the date each one joined and what they paid. Deliveries, with weight or count and the price agreed. Payments out, with who authorised each one. Three sheets, updated the same day, will answer almost every question an auditor or a doubting member asks.

Two rules that prevent most arguments

Only two people may edit, and every entry carries a date and a name. Not because members are dishonest, but because memory is unreliable and a written record protects the honest as much as it exposes the careless.