Workbench vs. Financial Model

Over the long weekend my adult son and I started to build a workbench in our garage.

We really started from a simple design idea and then put together the components. Cut the wood for the legs and screwed the frame together.

Of course, we also need to buy some of large wooden slaps at the local hardware store as well.

After using 48 screws and many cuts with the drop saw the workbench finally stands.

It looks okay – see above – but it is not good enough yet. It’s off by a small margin.

Something is missing to prevent the bench from swaying. We need to install some brackets and hope that those will fix the issue.

And this got me thinking…

You build a financial model or a quotation system or a reporting tool using the right tools, the right formulas and the right layout.

In the end it looks alright, it might be a bit cumbersome.

Does it have the correct functionality?
Is the result correct? Or just close?

You see the difference between a swaying workbench and a swaying financial model is this:

On our workbench we can still work and build something – maybe it takes longer.

An inaccurate financial model or reporting tool – on the other hand –  is just that: inaccurate!

You can’t base your $1m decisions on incorrect data, because you don’t know the magnitude of the error.

It makes all the difference when you have the right tools, the right information and the years of experience when building a clever Excel solution (or a workbench in your garage 🙂

Don’t leave it to chance.

“Jürgen brings German precision and design to all of his solutions, and you can have confidence that the solution he develops is accurate and commercially robust. He has excellent communication skills and can work easily with you and your team.”
Ron Wood, Founder and Director of Pricing Insight
Use Your Systems – Trust Your Numbers
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