Related papers: EuSpRIG 2006 Commercial Spreadsheet Review
The usual aim of spreadsheet audit is to verify correctness. There are two problems with this: first, it is often difficult to tell whether the spreadsheets in question are correct, and second, even if they are, they may still give the…
Business rules represent the knowledge that guides the operations of a business organization. They are implemented in software applications used by organizations, and the activity of extracting them from software is known as business rule…
Past research shows that spreadsheet models are prone to such a high frequency of errors and data security implications that the risk management of spreadsheet development and spreadsheet use is of great importance to both industry and…
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…
The use of spreadsheets is widespread. Be it in business, finance, engineering or other areas, spreadsheets are created for their flexibility and ease to quickly model a problem. Very often they evolve from simple prototypes to…
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…
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…
Research on formulae production in spreadsheets has established the practice as high risk yet unrecognised as such by industry. There are numerous software applications that are designed to audit formulae and find errors. However these are…
The paper examines in the context of financial reporting, the controls that organisations have in place to manage spreadsheet risk and errors. There has been widespread research conducted in this area, both in Ireland and internationally.…
The traditional approach to spreadsheet auditing generally consists of auditing every distinct formula within a spreadsheet. Although tools are developed to support auditors during this process, the approach is still very time consuming and…
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…
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…
Spreadsheets are widely used in industry, even for critical business processes. This implies the need for proper risk assessment in spreadsheets to evaluate the reliability and validity of the spreadsheet's outcome. As related research has…
Heavy use of spreadsheets by organisations bears many potential risks such as errors, ambiguity, data loss, duplication, and fraud. In this paper these risks are briefly outlined along with their available mitigation methods such as:…
Spreadsheet audit and review procedures are an essential part of almost all City of London financial transactions. Structured processes are used to discover errors in large financial spreadsheets underpinning major transactions of all…
Spreadsheets in financial markets are frequently used as database, calculator and reporting application combined. This paper describes an alternative approach in which spreadsheet design and database technology have been brought together in…
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…
Amongst the large number of write-and-throw-away spreadsheets developed for one-time use there is a rather neglected proportion of spreadsheets that are huge, periodically used, and submitted to regular update-cycles like any conventionally…
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…
There has been a significant amount of research into spreadsheets over the last two decades. Errors in spreadsheets are well documented. Once used mainly for simple functions such as logging, tracking and totalling information, spreadsheets…