Your Ultimate Cost Using An Inadequate Excel Model

There are different aspects when thinking about the cost of using an Excel model that’s not right for the job…

  • It’s time consuming
  • It’s frustrating to use
  • You can’t grow your business, because it is not scalable
  • Errors lead to more errors
  • It is demanding to work with
  • The lack of documentation makes it even harder to use

    Ultimately:
  • You can’t trust the data and the results of your model
  • You can’t make $1m decisions with that level of uncertainty

 

The cost of these errors is not just the time wasted or the time needed to redo your work.

The cost is the level of frustration.

The motivation for the user to cope with faulty or clunky models.

The ultimate cost can be a huge loss for your company.
Which can result in the loss of your job or the demise of your whole business.

Here’s what you could do to avoid this…

      a. Strategise your ideas and concepts

      b. Decide whether it is a one-off calculation or a sophisticated model

      c. Document your assumptions

      d. Clearly structure your workbook be separating your assumptions, parameters and results

      e. Build in error checks

       f. Colour code your different areas in the model

      g. Protect your calculations

      h. Avoid hard coded values at all cost

       i. Testing through various stakeholders

       j. Document your model

      k. Get your financial model audited

       l. Engage a modelling expert

 

Start the next financial year with well documented and audited models to make sure that your business is safe.

“The changes Jürgen made have resulted in a substantial time saving and improved the reliability of our process allowing us to focus on the analysis rather than the collation and manipulation of data. Jürgen isn't just an Excel guy but really understand process flows and the business outcomes. Thanks again.”
David Barton – Club Plus Super

Building Better Systems: Here are three ways I could help you right now…

  1. You have an idea or a problem to solve and you don’t know where to start and want an honest, straight forward sounding board with business acumen and IT experience. Call me to discuss. 
  2. You have an existing Excel – solution that does not do what it supposed to do. Here I can do a thorough assessment and audit of your model and give you recommendations for moving forward. 
  3. You want to work privately with me to weave some magic into your workflow models that will allow you and your team to base your million dollar decision on the right data.  Just email me to set up a time for a chat.