Spreadsheet "Worst Practices"

May 14, 2008 from CFO.com – “There's little doubt that electronic spreadsheets are the most widely-used financial software application. But they are also the most-abused.

It takes some effort — often a lot of effort — to develop and maintain sound, proper, and effective spreadsheet practices. The spreadsheet's very ease of use encourages sloppy habits, and even seasoned finance professionals can find themselves falling into bad habits. At its worst, spreadsheet sloppiness, reflected in poor design, difficult manipulation, and lack of documentation, can lead an auditor to declare that a company has ineffective controls over some aspect of financial reporting. But even less serious spreadsheet follies can cause major headaches….”

180 View – A reader of the article commented online with the following – “A comprehensive set of Best Practice Spreadsheet Modelling Standards and Conventions are available at www.ssrb.org. The Standards aim to promote discipline and consistency amongst spreadsheet model developers. They Standards are quite comprehensive and can be applied to any spreadsheet modelling task.” I had not heard of ssrb.org before but did take a quick peek at their free 77 page document. If you have time to wade through it, please let us know what you think.