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It’s 2:30 Friday afternoon
- Your staff has just completed the quarterly forecasts which are to be presented at the Executive Board meeting Monday morning
- You began your review of the Excel spreadsheets
- You get out your calculator and begin to sweat
- The numbers do not look right
- What can you do this late in the process?
Panic!
You are not alone
- Studies by KMPG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and, recently, Dartmouth College concluded that there is over a 90% probability that there are significant errors in your spreadsheet; and, that they are due to human error
It’s now Monday morning
- Your staff worked on overtime throughout the weekend
- The numbers are close
- Now the Board is asking you to prepare financials on a possible major acquisition
- You have two weeks to gather data and present several acquisition scenarios
- There goes your family life and that of your staff
- Spreadsheet design experts agree that it takes an average of 8 weeks to develop and test a detailed Excel model
But wait!
- The above scenarios represented the old fashion methods for financial forecasting, planning and analysis.
- You, Oh Wise One, have implemented Firebird which is definitely not your grandmother’s spreadsheet
- Last Friday you were able to quickly review the spreadsheet model’s formulas using both the Model Illustrator and Cross-referencing reports
- The error was also quickly corrected using the Model Editor
- All reports were rerun in time to be home for dinner with the family
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