Spreadsheets Audit - Quality of Spreadsheets |
Abstract
Our client engaged us to assess their financial spreadsheets, to assess the likelihood that they may contain incorrect data.
Challenge
We assisted an organisation by performing a spreadsheet quality review that highlighted risks and possible solutions to mitigate those risks.
Approach
- Evaluated the policies and procedures for spreadsheet use.
- Identified any spreadsheets that contained financial information and ranked each spreadsheet on its complexity and the magnitude of the data being processed.
- For each spreadsheet identified, we checked if the data was entered manually or was from an external source.
- Verified if the results have been entered correctly.
- Evaluated the modeling of each spreadsheet using specialised tools to access whether formulas were consistent with managements intentions.
Solution
- We found that most data was imported manually into the spreadsheets. This presented a risk of manual error and did not facilitate the consolidation of data. It also meant that spreadsheet integrity was highly dependent on data received by the end user.
- Spreadsheets were found that contained formulas that were not consistent with management’s intentions.
- Across all of the Excel spreadsheets reviewed, we found cells, containing formulas, that were not locked - This could facilitate changes, either inadvertent or deliberately.
- End-users did not use names to identify specific cells - The use of names greatly helps and simplifies maintenance and review of formulae.
