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Spreadsheet Errors
– Beware!
If you work in an office,
chances are you and / or your colleagues use spreadsheets (such
as Microsoft Excel) on a daily basis for important business
purposes.
And there’s nothing wrong with
that. After all, Excel is one of the most widely used software
applications in the world. It’s relatively easy to use, and
extremely powerful. You can save a huge amount of time versus
doing things manually. And you could potentially save a lot of
money using existing spreadsheet software, plus a little elbow
grease, for things like sales quotes, amortization tables and
database manipulation - instead of deploying purpose-built
software.
But beware – power and ease
of use are in this case a double-edged sword. Consider these
examples of spreadsheet embarrassment:
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In 2003, an
American firm reneged on its successful bid for a contract
after realising that they hadn't added $3.7m of electrical
work to their bid price because of a summation error in a
spreadsheet.
-
An audit of
Federal Funds in use by the Colorado Student Loan Program,
CSLP found a formula in a spreadsheet picked-up the date and
interpreted it as a dollar amount. As a result, the opening
balance of the Federal Fund was understated by $36k and CSLP
owed an additional $8k in interest to 2002.
-
An American
firm had to retract its 2003 third quarter press release
because of spreadsheet errors. The company stated 'There
were honest mistakes made in a spreadsheet used in the
implementation of a new accounting standard. This resulted
in increases of over $1bn each for Unrealised Gains on
Securities, Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income and Total
Shareholder Equity'.
-
In
Albuquerque, the 2003 city election results had to be
re-issued after errors were discovered. Individual,
precinct-by-precinct numbers were accurate, but the
spreadsheet had missed more than 11,000 votes from the
totals.
-
A Florida
construction company used @sum to total numbers in a range.
The range was not changed when an item was added, so the
added item was not summed. This caused the company to
underbid the project by a quarter of a million dollars.
-
A Fortune 500
firm uses discounted cash flow to evaluate investment
proposals. The formula and discount rate were established
long ago, were never documented, and were made by a person
who had left the company. Although the prime rate rose from
8% to over 20% between 1973 and 1981, the spreadsheet was
kept at 8%.
Sources:
http://www.eusprig.org/stories.htm
http://panko.cba.hawaii.edu/ssr/Cases.htm
While spreadsheets will
rightly remain a ubiquitous and valuable business tool, in many
cases the right software for mission-critical business use will
be more purpose-built and focused. Using an ERP system with
built-in quotation or reporting capabilities may seem more
costly than deploying a spreadsheet, but could actually save
your business from the types of consequences listed in our
examples.
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The Buzzzz
64-bit vs. 32-bit
All customers considering the purchase of new server equipment
should be made aware that the next version of Microsoft Exchange
Server will ONLY support 64-bit processors on servers running
Windows 2003 Server 64-bit.This is being done on purpose to
remove the limitations on memory and hard disk storage that are
imposed by 32-bit operating systems.
If
you want to be able to upgrade to the next version of Exchange,
you will have to be running 64-bit hardware. For more
information:
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/preview/faq.mspx.
End
of support for Windows 98 and Windows Me
July 11, 2006
will bring a close to Extended Support for Windows 98, Windows
98 Second Edition, and Windows Me as part of the Microsoft
Lifecycle Policy. Microsoft will retire public and technical
support, including security updates, by this date. For more
information:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/support/endofsupport.mspx
This decision by Microsoft will impact Blue Link’s ability to
provide ongoing support for systems running this operating
system.
Of course,
we will still endeavour to support you as best we can, but some
issues may be beyond our control, and cost of this support will
increase as it gets more out of date.
. 
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In this
issue:
Spreadsheet Errors - Beware!
The Buzzzz
Feature Update
Webinar Training
Blue Link Elite – Feature
Update
CRM
The new Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) component offers a range of lead
opportunity management tools that help you to increase productivity
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track
lead opportunities, and manages and schedules the sales activities
for each opportunity. It goes as far as to track individuals
separately from organizations, and manage their association with one
or many companies, and roles within companies.
Finally, it helps to create and maintain lists and templates and
will allow for the merging of data with a click of a button.
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Webinar Training |
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Do you feel that you could be doing more with your Blue Link
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Interested in participating? Simply email:
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Our flagship product, Blue Link
Elite, is a completely integrated business and accounting
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For a complete listing of all of our products
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For highlights about the
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For a full summary of
Version 11 features –
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L4K 4X2 Tel:(905) 660-0599 ( in the Toronto area)
Toll free: 1-877-BLU-LINK
(1-877-258-5465)
www.bluelink.ca
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