Spreadsheet Audit

At a party one Saturday night a few months ago an accountant friend told me how much she dreaded Monday mornings. When I asked why, she said she had to update a number of spreadsheets with current data and this involved unprotecting the worksheets in each workbook one by one, updating them, and them protecting each sheet again for distribution, all of which took most of Monday morning. I told her the unprotect/protect part of it could be done with a macro - it would take seconds. She was thrilled.

On the following Monday morning, I emailed her the macro with instructions on how to install it.

A couple of months later I again saw her and asked how the macro was performing. She replied that it had not been installed and how she still hated Monday mornings.

I actually suspect that she quite likes having such a tedious but relatively simple job first thing on a Monday. Any alternative might be too challenging for the early part of the week. But two hours of an accountant's time every week (that's 104 hours a year or nearly two full weeks) is a high price for any business to pay for such a menial task.

Let us come and talk to you about your business's use of Excel A half-day preliminary assessment costs £250.

By talking to a few of your Excel users and looking at some of their spreadsheets we shall be able to make recommendations and suggestions that will repay that investment many times over in the course of a year.

To learn how your business could run more efficiently contact us at info@bossml.com

An old joke tells of a tourist in a little rustic village in the heart of England who, unsure of his bearings, walks up to a local who is chewing a straw as he leans on a gatepost.

"Excuse me," he says, "but could you please tell me how to get from here to Exeter?", to which the yokel replies, "If I was going to Exeter, I wouldn't start from here!" . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .

So it is with Excel. It's often better to scrap what you've got and start out afresh than try to patch up the unpatchable.