Spending half my day just READING spreadsheet instead of actually doing something?

I manage inventory and purchasing for a mid-size operation and my entire workflow lives in Excel. multiple sheets cross-referencing each other, conditional formatting, VLOOKUP chains, the whole mess. I'm not complaining about the spreadsheet itself honestly, I've built it up over years and it does what I need.

the problem is I open it every morning and spend like an hour just.. looking at it. scanning rows to see if any stock levels dropped below threshold. checking if any PO dates are coming up. comparing last week's sales to this week to see if I need to adjust orders. then I do the same thing after lunch. and sometimes again before I leave.

the spreadsheet has the data. the spreadsheet has the logic. I literally set up the conditional formatting to highlight the cells that need attention. but there's no way for it to just.. tell me? like I still have to open it and look with my eyes. every single day.

I tried setting up some VBA macros to auto-send emails when certain conditions hit but I'm not a developer and I broke something twice so I stopped. looked into Zapier but connecting it to my actual Excel files felt way more complicated than it should be, plus my sheets have a lot of context that a simple "if cell A > 10" rule can't capture. like sometimes low stock is fine because we have a seasonal dip, and I just know that from experience.

I know people will say "use a real inventory management system" but honestly for our size and the way our business works, the spreadsheet IS the system. I just wish it could do the last mile, like ping me on slack when something needs attention, or draft the reorder email, instead of me having to check manually every few hours.

is anyone else stuck in this loop? how do you handle the "I have to check my spreadsheet 5 times a day" problem? genuinely curious if there's a solution I'm missing or if this is just how it is for Excel-heavy workflows