What are the signs that spreadsheets no longer meet your organizations financial needs
I'm often asked by potential clients "how do you know that (our spreadsheet based) financial planning processes could be improved? It's served our business well for the for the last x years", is a typical comment.
I have a simple reply. Go through the following checklist and if you answer more than 50% of the questions positively then you should look at an alternative approach.
Time - Do you spend more time maintaining the spreadsheets that you use to ensure their reliability and accuracy. More so, do you actually have people in your Financial Department whose total or partial responsibility it is to maintain their integrity?
1. Do you spend time when you budget, forecast or plan checking and fixing formulas?
2. Do you worry that you should be spending time checking formulas, but don't?
3. Are you frustrated that you and your team have to devote time to checking spreadsheet integrity?
4. Are you afraid to touch your spreadsheets, is the prospect of changing or altering them too daunting?
5. Do you cringe when a senior member of the team asked for a forecast or model that you currently can't produce?
6. Are you more than 70% certain that your spreadsheets are accurate?
7. Are you cutting and pasting formulas from one location to another repeatedly and are you confident that errors are never made during this procedure?
8. Do you suspect that members of your team have made errors in the past that are a potential time- bomb?
9. Do you know that there are inherent errors within your spreadsheets but can't face the prospect of having to track them down?
So, as I said if you have answered yes to more than 5 questions here I would strongly recommend that you speak with MXI or a trusted partner who understands the market.
Contact MXI Software