End User Computing

Microsoft Excel is now one of the most common PC applications and its reach extends into most organizations. This popularity is fueled by its powerful features and ease of use.
The trouble is that most Excel spreadsheet systems lack auditability, security and controls, and organizations now rely on these tools for extremely important financial reports— group consolidations, annual financial statements, business intelligence systems, cash flow management systems and so on.

Surveys have shown how error-prone spreadsheets can be with many companies suffering financial and reputational loss.

With many companies moving to IFRS it’s a fair bet to say that 99.99% of companies will use spreadsheets in some form to help with the move to IFRS. These spreadsheets will be used to model asset component depreciation rates, fair values, collect journal entries, and so on.

Organizations that don't pay attention to ensuring the integrity of their spreadsheets will expose themselves to risk.

“Spreadsheets or models that are used as short-term remedies to provide the necessary adjustments to convert local GAAP to IFRS are generally not subject to the same stringent controls normally built into integrated financial packages. This can significantly increase the risk of errors. Strict controls will need to be implemented to manage, monitor, and reconcile the flow of data between models and other systems.”

Extract from KPMG Whitepaper— “The Effect of IFRS on information Systems”

 

More than 90% of spreadsheets have errors and weaknesses including:
little or no testing, poor controls over changes to spreadsheets, inadequate versioning, poor design approaches by personnel not trained in spreadsheet best practices, no standards over file naming conventions, no standards over file storage locations.	insufficient or no documentation. no use of check totals, incorrect use of functions and function options, hidden columns, rows, or worksheets, incorrect formatting of numbers as textual values, use of incorrect formatting of numbers, misuse of relative and absolute referencing.
We have a range of specialized tools and techniques for Reviewing and assessing spreadsheets, identifying errors, making recommendations. Call us today to start the review process.   Prevent Spreadsheet errors and save!