When you’re running training day-to-day, your focus is most certainly on delivering quality courses, supporting learners and keeping customers confident that everything is under control. The scramble to get everything tracked and all your admin done comes second.
A spreadsheet here, a calendar there, maybe a shared document that shows what’s coming up. Over time, that setup becomes your training tracker, even if you’ve never labelled it as one.
As delivery volumes increase, requirements change and more people need access to the same information, those early systems often struggle to keep up. What once felt flexible can start to feel fragile, and more of your time goes into maintaining tracking than using it to move the business forward.
This article looks at how you may tracking training today, why common approaches start to creak as you scale, and how platforms like accessplanit help you keep control.
Most of the time, tracking grows organically as training delivery grows.
You might begin with a simple spreadsheet listing courses and dates. Another tab gets added for attendance. Certificates are tracked somewhere else. Emails act as a record of booking changes. Calendars are used to sense-check trainer availability.
Together, these tools form a working training tracker. It does the job, gives you visibility and doesn’t get in the way.
As your delivery grows, tracking stops sitting quietly in the background and starts needing active attention. You’re no longer just referring to it, you’re managing it.
This is usually the stage where cracks appear. More than one person is updating the same information. Changes don’t always make it across every file. Each booking or cancellation triggers another manual update. Getting a clear view of what’s really happening means checking several sources against each other. Reports exist, but you only trust them once you’ve reviewed the data yourself.
Your training tracker is still there, but it starts getting fragmented. Instead of helping you move faster, it makes you pause, check and confirm before taking action.
One of the clearest signs that your current setup has reached its limit is when tracking feels like a role in its own right.
Attendance is updated after delivery rather than as part of it. Certificates and expiry dates are logged manually. Bookings are reconciled across systems to make sure nothing’s been missed. Reports are rebuilt each time someone asks a routine question. Progress and status are often explained by individuals rather than shown clearly in the system.
At that point, tracking is no longer supporting delivery. It’s running alongside it, competing for time and attention.
When you look at improving how you track training, the issue is rarely a lack of information. It’s the effort required to keep that information accurate and useful.
You need to be able to see what’s scheduled, what’s confirmed and what’s still provisional. You need a clear view of who is booked on, where action is needed and how trainers are allocated. Attendance and outcomes should be visible without repeating work. Certificates, renewals and compliance requirements need to be easy to monitor. Reporting should reflect reality without starting from a blank sheet each time.
A training tracker that supports this gives you the confidence to plan and make decisions without hesitation. One that doesn’t adds friction to everyday work and slows everything else down.
One of the biggest shifts training providers make as they grow is moving away from tracking that happens after the event.
When tracking is bolted on afterwards, it creates duplication. You do the work once to deliver the training, then again to record what happened. That’s where admin quietly builds up.
When tracking is embedded into the delivery process, it becomes a by-product of the work you’re already doing. Bookings update records. Attendance feeds reporting. Certificates are issued without manual logs.
This is usually the point where a basic tracker gives way to a more connected approach.
Rather than maintaining a separate training tracker, many providers move to a training management system where tracking happens automatically as part of planning and delivery.
The difference is subtle but important. Instead of asking you to keep records up to date, the system does it for you.
Courses are scheduled. Learners book on. Communications are sent. Attendance is recorded. Outcomes are logged. Tracking is built in, not added on.
accessplanit is designed around how training actually runs, particularly for commercial and regulated providers.
From a tracking perspective, it allows you to:
Because everything sits in one connected platform, you’re not reconciling information across systems. Your training tracker is effectively built into your workflow.
A common concern when moving away from manual tracking is losing flexibility or control. In reality, most providers find they gain both.
When tracking is automated and centralised, you can see what’s happening without chasing updates. Managers don’t need constant status checks. Administrators can focus on exceptions rather than routine tasks.
Dashboards replace manual checking. Automated communications reduce follow-ups. Reporting becomes something you trust rather than something you verify.
That balance is often what you’re really aiming for when you look to improve how you track training.
As delivery volumes increase, admin can easily increase with them unless systems are designed to absorb that growth.
A training tracker that’s embedded in a wider platform helps you scale without proportionally increasing effort. Information flows through once, rather than being entered and re-entered in multiple places.
For providers delivering high volumes or working within regulatory frameworks, that efficiency quickly becomes essential.
There’s no single moment when a spreadsheet stops working, but there are clear signals that it’s becoming a limitation:
When these patterns appear, it’s usually a sign that tracking needs to be part of a more connected setup.
Tracking is only valuable if it helps you make informed decisions. Knowing what’s running, what’s profitable, where risks sit and where capacity exists allows you to plan with confidence.
When tracking is fragmented, those insights are harder to reach. When it’s built into a connected system, they’re much easier to access.
accessplanit supports this by bringing planning, delivery, tracking and reporting into one platform, giving you a clearer view of your operation without unnecessary complexity.
A training tracker is how you record and monitor training activity. This usually includes courses, schedules, learners, trainers, attendance, certificates and outcomes. It can be a spreadsheet, a shared document or part of a training management system.
Yes, and many providers do. Spreadsheets can work well at smaller scales, but they often become harder to manage as delivery volumes, compliance requirements and team size increase.
A training tracker records information. A training management system supports the full training lifecycle, from planning and booking through to delivery, tracking and reporting. In a TMS, tracking happens automatically as work is done.
This usually happens when tracking starts to create more work than it saves. Common signs include duplicated data entry, low confidence in reports and increasing admin time as delivery grows.
It can, but manual trackers rely heavily on people keeping them up to date. Systems with built-in tracking can automate certificate management and highlight risks before they become issues.
accessplanit embeds tracking into your planning and delivery workflows. Courses, learners, trainers, certificates and reporting all sit in one platform, reducing manual updates and giving you real-time visibility.
Training tracking works best when it reflects how you actually deliver training. When systems support your workflows rather than working around them, tracking becomes a source of clarity instead of friction.
If you’re reviewing how you currently keep track of training and want to see how a connected platform could support your operation as it grows, booking a demo is a practical way to explore whether accessplanit is the right fit.
If you’re curious about how these AI features work in practice, or you’re exploring how accessplanit could support your team more generally, we’d love to show you around!
Book a demo and we’ll walk through the platform, talk through your setup, and answer any questions you have along the way.