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The use of uncontrolled financial spreadsheets can expose organizations to unacceptable business and compliance risks, including errors in the financial reporting process, spreadsheet misuse and fraud, or even significant operational…
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…
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…
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.…
A business case study on how three simple guidelines: 1. Make it easy to check (and maintain) 2. Make it safe to use 3. Keep business logic out of code changed user attitudes and improved spreadsheet quality in a financial services…
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…
There have been many articles and mishaps published about the risks of uncontrolled spreadsheets in today's business environment, including non-compliance, operational risk, errors, and fraud all leading to significant loss events.…
Thanks to the enormous flexibility they provide, spreadsheets are considered a priceless blessing by many end-users. Many spreadsheets, however, contain errors which can lead to severe consequences in some cases. To manage these risks,…
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…
Most organizations today use spreadsheets in some form or another to support critical business processes. However the financial resources, and developmental rigor dedicated to them are often minor in comparison to other enterprise…
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…
Spreadsheets that are informally created are harder to test than they should be. Simple cross-foot checks or being easily readable are modest but attainable goals for every spreadsheet developer. This paper lists some tips on building…
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…
Previous research on spreadsheet risks has predominantly focussed on errors inadvertently introduced by spreadsheet writers i.e. it focussed on the end-user aspects of spreadsheet development. When analyzing a faulty spreadsheet, one might…
Spreadsheets are used extensively within today's organisations. Although spreadsheets have many benefits, they can also present a significant risk exposure, requiring appropriate management. Protiviti has worked with a number of…
Students learning how to apply spreadsheets to accounting problems are not always well served by the built-in financial functions. Problems can arise because of differences between UK and US practice, through anomalies in the functions…
A common application of spreadsheets is the development of models that deliver projections of the future financial statements of companies established to pursue ventures that are subject to project financing. A survey of 11 such…
It is now widely accepted that errors in spreadsheets are both common and potentially dangerous. Further research has taken place to investigate how frequently these errors occur, what impact they have, how the risk of spreadsheet errors…
Despite strong evidence of widespread errors, spreadsheet developers rarely subject their spreadsheets to post-development testing to reduce errors. This may be because spreadsheet developers are overconfident in the accuracy of their…
Spreadsheets have been with us in their present form for over a quarter of a century. We have become so used to them that we forget that we are using them at all. It may serve us well to stand back for a moment to review where, when and how…