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Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

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Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#401

Post by rbg246 »

allenz wrote: post #384
screature2 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing because of 1) lack of built in logging, 2) lack of change control and 2) difficult to automate testing and verification (because of it's relatively unstructured nature). Excel as the source of truth for a financial system is particularly scary to me b/c it's so easy for someone/anyone to change entries or miscalculate so it's very difficult for me to get confidence in its completeness and correctness. Co…

Logging: I just save a copy of the spreadsheet every time I make a tax filing. Do I need anything more fine-grained? Validation: I'm confident that I can catch duplicated rows and mistyped amounts because Excel formulas verify that the sum of all transactions for each account equals the account balance, and that transfers between accounts add up to $0. Do I need anything more? Point-in-time doesn't work because I nee…

How do you know the account balance total they you are validating your line items against is correct? Is that coming from another accounting system?

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#402

Post by [deleted] »

Pamar wrote: post #308
sheetjs wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my career in business software has still mostly been about converting spreadsheets into more "proper" applications. Still true for many people in 2017. @patio11 probably said it best: > Every spreadsheet shared in a business is an angel announcing another SaaS app still needs to be built. https://twitter.com/patio11/status/655674551615942657 FWIW we ended up in business software after one of our open source librari…

> Every spreadsheet shared in a business is an angel announcing another SaaS app still needs to be built. Really? I am working in company which is not handling super-sensitive data (i.e. not a Bank, for example) but I can assure you that if went around proposing to adopt a SAAS for what Excel is used internally I would not get very far. No matter how good you are as a SAAS provider, our data stay in-house. End of sto…

[deleted]

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#403

Post by Sean1708 »

njharman wrote: post #269
Sean1708 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the business people can at least modify the Excel I'm not convinced that's a good thing. If they can change the Excel then they can also fuck up the system, and if you fuck up a system like this then it's horrendously difficult to unfuck. I think systems like this look great when they're working, but the second they go tits up you realise why people are horrified by them.

Users able to modify cod is the opensource model. It doesn't lose its benefits and advantages just because the users are not us(professional devs)

That's not the issue at all. The issue is that these systems invariably have no review process, no testing, and no versioning (at best they'll have each spreadsheet versioned with no real way to know what each version contains). And this makes them incredibly fragile.

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#404

Post by dkersten »

allenz wrote: post #384
screature2 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing because of 1) lack of built in logging, 2) lack of change control and 2) difficult to automate testing and verification (because of it's relatively unstructured nature). Excel as the source of truth for a financial system is particularly scary to me b/c it's so easy for someone/anyone to change entries or miscalculate so it's very difficult for me to get confidence in its completeness and correctness. Co…

Logging: I just save a copy of the spreadsheet every time I make a tax filing. Do I need anything more fine-grained? Validation: I'm confident that I can catch duplicated rows and mistyped amounts because Excel formulas verify that the sum of all transactions for each account equals the account balance, and that transfers between accounts add up to $0. Do I need anything more? Point-in-time doesn't work because I nee…

> Validation: I'm confident that I can catch duplicated rows and mistyped amounts because Excel formulas verify that the sum of all transactions for each account equals the account balance, and that transfers between accounts add up to $0. Do I need anything more?

I'm sure that the people who made these billion dollar mistakes were pretty confident too... https://www.cio.com/article/2438188/enterprise-software/eigh...

"The error occurred when the accountant omitted the minus sign on a net capital loss of $1.3 billion" (Fidelity)

"There were honest mistakes made in a spreadsheet used in the implementation of a new accounting standard." (Fannie Mae, $1.36 billion loss)

There's a bunch of lower (million dollar) losses listed in the linked page too.

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#405

Post by allenz »

rbg246 wrote: post #401
allenz wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logging: I just save a copy of the spreadsheet every time I make a tax filing. Do I need anything more fine-grained? Validation: I'm confident that I can catch duplicated rows and mistyped amounts because Excel formulas verify that the sum of all transactions for each account equals the account balance, and that transfers between accounts add up to $0. Do I need anything more? Point-in-time doesn't work because I nee…

How do you know the account balance total they you are validating your line items against is correct? Is that coming from another accounting system?

I validate account totals against the balance reported by the bank.

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#408

Post by pitay »

mickronome wrote: post #397
pitay wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excel endures because it's the non-programmer's REPL for data. Like a Lisp REPL, using Excel is nimble and has an instant feedback loop. Click "A-Z" to sort ascending, click "Z-A" to sort descending. Move/hide/freeze columns. If one has intermediate-to-advanced skills, one can pivot the data on multiple axis. None of the centralized systems with even the slickest web GUIs can match Excel's capabilities. What about Bu…

Excel offers a few things in most scenarios, primarily because that any enforced structure always implies lost flexibility, and one of the issues often quoted with Excel is the lack of enforcement of using the right structures and data sources. A simple one: If I have been asked to do a report, but it turns out I don't have the correct access rights to some data, my manager can simply send it to me in an Excel sheet,…

Thanks very much for the info that Excel may offer least friction in a lot of circumstances, especially when ad-hoc things need to be done with data.

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#409

Post by allenz »

dkersten wrote: post #404
allenz wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logging: I just save a copy of the spreadsheet every time I make a tax filing. Do I need anything more fine-grained? Validation: I'm confident that I can catch duplicated rows and mistyped amounts because Excel formulas verify that the sum of all transactions for each account equals the account balance, and that transfers between accounts add up to $0. Do I need anything more? Point-in-time doesn't work because I nee…

> Validation: I'm confident that I can catch duplicated rows and mistyped amounts because Excel formulas verify that the sum of all transactions for each account equals the account balance, and that transfers between accounts add up to $0. Do I need anything more? I'm sure that the people who made these billion dollar mistakes were pretty confident too... https://www.cio.com/article/2438188/enterprise-software/eigh..…

I don't doubt that people have made mistakes involving spreadsheets. But these mistakes are not unique to spreadsheets. Switching to an enterprise system doesn't magically prevent data entry problems.[1] Similarly, you're as likely to implement an accounting function incorrectly in Excel as in SQL or Java.

I think that you need to show that Excel requires more data entry, or riskier data entry, or that Excel can't catch as many errors, etc. For now I'm not convinced.

[1] https://www.accountingweb.com/aa/auditing/human-errors-the-t...

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