Related papers: Controls over Spreadsheets for Financial Reporting…

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,…

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…

Spreadsheet users regularly deal with uncertainty in their data, for example due to errors and estimates. While an insight into data uncertainty can help in making better informed decisions, prior research suggests that people often use…

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…

All users of spreadsheets struggle with the problem of errors. Errors are thought to be prevalent in spreadsheets, and in some instances they have cost organizations millions of dollars. In a previous study of 50 operational spreadsheets we…

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 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…

One of the problems reported by researchers and auditors in the field of spreadsheet risks is that of getting and keeping managements attention to the problem. Since 1996, the Information Systems Audit & Control Foundation and the IT…

Spreadsheet technology is a cornerstone of IT systems in most organisations. It is often the glue that binds more structured transaction-based systems together. Financial operations are a case in point where spreadsheets fill the gaps left…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

This management paper looks at the real world issues faced by practitioners managing spreadsheets through the production phase of their life cycle. It draws on the commercial experience of several developers working with large corporations,…

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…

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 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…

In traditional usability studies, researchers talk to users of tools to understand their needs and challenges. Insights gained via such interviews offer context, detail, and background. Due to costs in time and money, we are beginning to…

We investigated publicly reported security breaches of internal controls in corporate systems to determine whether SOX assessments are information bearing with respect to breaches which can lead to materially significant losses and…