Related papers: Impact of Errors in Operational Spreadsheets

The frequency with which spreadsheets are used and the associated risk is well known. Many tools and techniques have been developed which help reduce risks associate with creating and maintaining spreadsheet. However, little consideration…

There is an overlooked iceberg of problems in end user computing. Spreadsheets are developed by people who are very skilled in their main job function, be it finance, procurement, or production planning, but often have had no formal…

Spreadsheets are ubiquitous, heavily relied on throughout vast swathes of finance, commerce, industry, academia and Government. They are also acknowledged to be extraordinarily and unacceptably prone to error. If these two points are…

Recognizing that the use of spreadsheets within finance will likely not subside in the near future, this paper discusses a major barrier that is preventing more organizations from adopting enterprise spreadsheet management programs. But…

Because spreadsheets have a large and growing importance in real-world work, their contents need to be controlled and validated. Generally spreadsheets have been difficult to verify, since data and executable information are stored…

This paper explores the impacts of spreadsheets on business operations in a water utility parastatal in Malawi, Sub-Saharan Africa. The organisation is a typical example of a semi-government body operating in a technologically…

Accounting and Finance (A&F) Professionals are arguably the most loyal and concentrated population of spreadsheet users. The work that they perform in spreadsheets has the most significant impact on financial data and business processes…

Spreadsheets are widely used in industry, because they are flexible and easy to use. Sometimes they are even used for business-critical applications. It is however difficult for spreadsheet users to correctly assess the quality of…

The use of spreadsheets in industry is widespread. Companies base decisions on information coming from spreadsheets. Unfortunately, spreadsheets are error-prone and this increases the risk that companies base their decisions on inaccurate…

Spreadsheets (sometimes also called Excel programs) are powerful tools which play a business-critical role in many organizations. However, due to faulty spreadsheets many bad decisions have been taken in recent years. Since then, a number…

Few major commercial or economic decisions are made today which are not underpinned by analysis using spreadsheets. It is virtually impossible to avoid making mistakes during their drafting and some of these errors remain, unseen and…

The spreadsheet has been used by the business community for many years and yet still raises a number of significant concerns. As educators our concern is to try to develop the students skills in both the development of spreadsheets and in…

Spreadsheets are widely used within companies and often form the basis for business decisions. Numerous cases are known where incorrect information in spreadsheets has lead to incorrect decisions. Such cases underline the relevance of…

Spreadsheets are one of the most widely used programming environments, and are widely deployed in domains like finance where errors can have catastrophic consequences. We present a static analysis specifically designed to find spreadsheet…

Previous spreadsheet inspection experiments have had human subjects look for seeded errors in spreadsheets. In this study, subjects attempted to find errors in human-developed spreadsheets to avoid the potential artifacts created by error…

We present a widely-used operations management model used in supply and distribution planning, that is typically embedded in a periodic business process that necessitates model modification and reuse. We consider three alternative…

Errors in spreadsheet applications and models are alarmingly common (some authorities, with justification cite spreadsheets containing errors as the norm rather than the exception). Faced with this body of evidence, the auditor can be faced…

A new MS Excel application has been developed which seeks to reduce the risks associated with the development, operation and auditing of Excel spreadsheets. FormulaDataSleuth provides a means of checking spreadsheet formulas and data as…

There is overwhelming evidence that the continued and widespread use of untested spreadsheets in business gives rise to regular, significant and unexpected financial losses. Whilst this is worrying, it is perhaps a relatively minor concern…

This paper presents the findings of a case study of spreadsheet use in a higher education institution in the UK. The paper considers the use of spreadsheets in two units of the organisation, academic registry and finance. Spreadsheet use is…