Spreadsheet of the Month - April 2009 | Media Manager | Spreadsheet of the Month | Farm Futures

Spreadsheet of the Month - April 2009 | Media Manager | Spreadsheet of the Month | Farm Futures:

"Farmer-developed spreadsheet helps make sense of federal program."

NorthJersey.com: Colleagues back Coniglio as trial testimony wraps up

NorthJersey.com: Colleagues back Coniglio as trial testimony wraps up:

"...He added that a legislative spreadsheet crediting Coniglio for some of that money was inaccurate..."

Salary spike was a city spreadsheet error - Newton, MA - Newton TAB

Salary spike was a city spreadsheet error - Newton, MA - Newton TAB:

Headline blames the software for what was a human error: "he had omitted a number of employees from the 2007 report, accounting for a lower total headcount and compensation than was actually paid."

Microsoft: Laid-off can keep extra pay after all - USATODAY.com

From article...sounds like a spreadsheet user error:

Brummel called the glitch a clerical error, and said that at some point in the process of calculating severance packages, communicating with employees and cutting checks, "we had payments misaligned with people's names." (Brummel said she didn't know whether an Excel spreadsheet was at the root of the problem.)

Microsoft: Laid-off can keep extra pay after all - USATODAY.com

New apps make iPhone a business accessory

New apps make iPhone a business accessory

Excel error leaves Barclays with more Lehman assets than it bargained for

Excel error leaves Barclays with more Lehman assets than it bargained for

Barclays Blames Spreadsheet Error, Wants to Revise Lehman Deal - Headline Watch

Barclays Blames Spreadsheet Error, Wants to Revise Lehman Deal - Headline Watch

'Rounding error' forces Baltimore police to alter rankings for sergeant promotion -- baltimoresun.com

'Rounding error' forces Baltimore police to alter rankings for sergeant promotion -- baltimoresun.com

The Bellingham Herald / Local / Lab mistake threatens DUI cases

The Bellingham Herald / Local / Lab mistake threatens DUI cases: From the article: "The failure to update a simple function in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet document went undetected for two years, slightly throwing off test results for a series of solutions the lab distributes to calibrate breath test machines."

Eight of the Worst Spreadsheet Blunders - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

Eight of the Worst Spreadsheet Blunders - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

Redwood, New Hope get faulty tax bills

newsobserver.com | Redwood, New Hope get faulty tax bills

Decimal point error skews Spokane breathalyzer results

Decimal point error skews Spokane breathalyzer results

LinuxWorld | Scientists cash in on fixing spreadsheet errors

LinuxWorld | Scientists cash in on fixing spreadsheet errors

IT-Director.com - Security! What security?

IT-Director.com - Security! What security?:

From the article:

"All of that being the case, it is surprising that none of the established players in the enterprise spreadsheet management market have majored on providing spreadsheet security as a first and foremost requirement. Instead, the likes of Compassoft, Mobius, Cimcon and Prodiance have focused on control and compliance—no doubt because of the pressure to be able to sign-off against the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley and similar regulations."

Pacific Daily News - www.guampdn.com - Hagatna, GU

Pacific Daily News - www.guampdn.com - Hagatna, GU:

From the article:

"But the spreadsheets didn't provide lawmakers with the answers they were seeking. Instead, minutes after session began, near 3 p.m., Speaker Mark Forbes noted how the totals of the revenue forecasts broken down on a month-to-month basis in the spreadsheets didn't match up with those used in Bill 74.

Forbes noted a difference of more than $200,000 in the revenue projections shown on the spreadsheet for 2007 GRT collections."

Compensation Management: The Newest Spectator Sport

E-Commerce News: CRM Systems: Compensation Management: The Newest Spectator Sport

Report questions incentive benefits

Spreadsheet used in North Carolina economic development decision making process. Garbage in, garbage out?

From the article:

The report says that the model is flawed and that officials too often use inflated assumptions that make projects look better than they are. It challenges a central defense that the governor and other state officials have used to justify the tax breaks, grants and other perks promised to companies.

Those officials often tout the figures from the spreadsheet as proof that the state makes wise incentives decisions.

“Aggressive use of a reasonable, but imperfect, model appears to be leading the state to regularly make overly generous incentive offers,” the report says.

Recount gives Hamilton win

Recount gives Hamilton win: "The difference in Friday's total and the total certified two weeks ago might have resulted from a spreadsheet error, election officials said."

Spreadsheet Management Business Expected To Boom Fixing Old Error-Ridden Spreadsheets - Industries News by InformationWeek

Spreadsheet Management Business Expected To Boom Fixing Old Error-Ridden Spreadsheets - Industries News by InformationWeek

Recount gives Hamilton win

Spreadsheet error affects initial election result?

Recount gives Hamilton win: "The difference in Friday's total and the total certified two weeks ago might have resulted from a spreadsheet error, election officials said.

Union: Firefighters asked about pay (requires free registration)

MorningSun.net

From the article:

Members of the Pittsburg Fire Department Labor Management Committee said Monday that city firefighters repeatedly asked about a glitch in a spreadsheet formula that overpaid them by close to $150,000 in salary and benefits between Jan. 1, 2005 and May 2006.

and later (emphasis added),

The audit received by The Morning Sun had names blacked out to protect privacy, but it said that a payroll clerk identified that he or she "believed the spreadsheet was in error within the first several months of 2005," and brought it to the attention of "several people." But nothing further was done because someone, whose name was blacked out, believed that the spreadsheet was correct.

Madison Daily Leader - Professors develop spreadsheet to help farmers allocate water supplies

Madison Daily Leader - Professors develop spreadsheet to help farmers allocate water supplies

Spreadsheets in Election Politics. The Seattle Times: Politics: Judge left to mull vote-fraud claim

The Seattle Times: Politics: Judge left to mull vote-fraud claim

From the article:
The key piece of evidence Republicans relied on was a spreadsheet developed by their data analyst. It contained King County records showing a discrepancy between absentee ballots counted and voters shown as having voted absentee.

EuSpRIG 2005: Spreadsheets and SOx Conference Comes to London

EuSpRIG 2005: Spreadsheets and SOx Conference Comes to London

Avoiding Errors in Excel Spreadsheets - 13 Jun 2005

Some reasonable questions here, but fairly general. Published by accountingweb.com. Avoiding Errors in Excel Spreadsheets - 13 Jun 2005

Berkeley Daily Planet

Not so much an "error" in the model, but perhaps a lack of documentation, and/or hiding too much information in a model, resulting in a lack of understanding and communication.
Berkeley Daily Planet: "spr"

Shedding Light on Shadow IT: Is Excel Running Your Business? by ProClarity - A Vendor White Paper - InformationWeek White Papers

Shedding Light on Shadow IT: Is Excel Running Your Business? by ProClarity - A Vendor White Paper - InformationWeek White Papers: "Research Abstract

Shedding Light on Shadow IT: Is Excel Running Your Business? by ProClarity"

Is IT's Big Project a Waste of Money?

CIO Insight story about Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and the related IT issues and costs. Is IT's Big Project a Waste of Money?

VisiCalc Executable for the IBM PC

VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet for the IBM PC. Still runs on today's Windows machines. The file size is only 27.5 KB! VisiCalc Executable for the IBM PC

Spreadsheet Overload? - Computerworld

Spreadsheet Overload? - Computerworld

Intern saves TJX $100K by flagging mistake

Guess the spreadsheet was the one that was correct here. MetroWest Daily News - Local News Coverage

Soheil Saadat, CEO of Scientific Software, Inc.

Soheil Saadat, CEO of Scientific Software, Inc.

Record-Journal

Record-Journal:
Isn't it interesting how math and spreadsheet errors often seem to be "one-time" and "simple"...

"Florio said Thursday that it's a one-time mistake in the 2005-06 budget book.

'When I set up the spreadsheet, it was counting rather than summing,' Florio said. 'If a person was half-time, it counted them as one rather than a half. That was the difference. I verified the numbers and the dollars in the budget. It won't affect the bottom line, and didn't affect the bottom line going in.'

...Peter Massey, a school board member, said it was a simple mistake.

'In essence, it's a math error, is what it is,' he said. 'The many numbers are correct. It's a math error. I wasn't there. There was no impropriety, no inflation of the budget.'

Guest opinion: Biennial budget numbers confuse funding issues - billingsgazette.com

Guest opinion: Biennial budget numbers confuse funding issues - billingsgazette.com

Maybe not a spreadsheet error, but the model's clarity and communication qualities leave something to be desired, apparently.

Business Analysis Tools Gaining in Visualization

Business Analysis Tools Gaining in Visualization

Holes in Microsoft Office XML

Holes in Microsoft Office XML

Excel's SpreadsheetML vocabulary is infinitely easier to read and process than WordprocessingML, but it's also missing lots and lots of things, notably charts and VBA. Save an Excel spreadsheet as XML, and suddenly all the VBA vanishes. Big problem.

OLAP An Alternative Technology Over Spreadsheets

OLAP An Alternative Technology Over Spreadsheets

Oracle Ships Stand-Alone BI for 10g

Oracle Ships Stand-Alone BI for 10g

BI 10g packages Oracle Corp.'s Discoverer dashboard query tool; Spreadsheet Add-In, which provides direct access to Oracle OLAP from within Microsoft Corp. Excel spreadsheets; Warehouse Builder, for data quality and ETL (extraction, transformation and loading) functionality; and BI Beans, a custom BI application development environment.

WebCPA | Tools and Resources for the Electronic Accountant

WebCPA | Tools and Resources for the Electronic Accountant

Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: Real-Time Collaborative Planning in Excel

Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: Real-Time Collaborative Planning in Excel

Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: An Affordable Escape From Spreadsheet Hell

Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: An Affordable Escape From Spreadsheet Hell

Managing spreadsheet fraud | The Register

Managing spreadsheet fraud | The Register

Martin Green's Office Tips : Downloads page

Martin Green's Office Tips : Downloads page

Compliance Week: 7.7 Percent Of 10-Ks Receive SOX 404 Adverse Opinions

Compliance Week: 7.7 Percent Of 10-Ks Receive SOX 404 Adverse Opinions

Error could cost schools thousands (4/8/05)

Error could cost schools thousands By JEFF TOBIN SENTINEL STAFF WRITER April 8, 2005

IT-Director.com: Managing spreadsheets

IT-Director.com: Managing spreadsheets

4/8/2005 Error could cost schools thousands

Error could cost schools thousands By JEFF TOBIN SENTINEL STAFF WRITER April 8, 2005

26-Feb-05 - Lynch team scrambles to finish budget

The Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News - 26-Feb-05 - Lynch team scrambles to finish budget
Spreadsheet Error in New Hampshire Health & Human Services. From the article:
A detailed spreadsheet that HHS gave Ways and Means Tuesday morning showed that $35 million in a specific category of hospital reimbursements would come in over the next two years. A second sheet HHS produced Tuesday afternoon showed no money in the category, reflecting the fact the funds can only be used one way – at the state hospital.

Exeter News-Letter Local News: State error = $ for some

Exeter News-Letter Local News: State error = $ for some
This is more of a methodology error (medan household income versus median family income), but the error was made in a spreadsheet context. From the article:
According to Ezen, the error was discovered accidentally. "One of our employees was looking at some issues in the current work on school funding, and pulled some spreadsheets and census data," he said. "By looking at it closely, they discovered an error was made."

What is the single most challenging Sanbanes-Oxley issue today?

What is the single most challenging Sanbanes-Oxley issue today?
From the article:
One key area where process improvements can be made is in focusing on the technology infrastructure needed to effectively manage electronic corporate records, and specifically financial spreadsheets and reports. In recent years, there have been some significant and devastating errors related to financial spreadsheets, several were cited in a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). In one recent case, a major financial institution made a $1 Billion error in their financial statement, and the root cause of the error was traced back to a flawed spreadsheet change control process and unapproved changes to formulas. In another case, a trader at a bank was able to extort a significant amount of money and was undetected for several months. Again the root cause was traced back to the unapproved manipulation of spreadsheet models used by the bank’s risk control staff, and inadequate document security (The Use of Spreadsheets: Considerations for Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, PWC, July 2004).

i-Newswire.com - Press Release And News Distribution - Affordable Tool to Inventory Spreadsheets for SOX Compliance Audits

i-Newswire.com - Press Release And News Distribution - Affordable Tool to Inventory Spreadsheets for SOX Compliance Audits

CECO to restate four years of results - 2005-02-09 - Cincinnati Business Courier

CECO to restate four years of results - 2005-02-09 - Cincinnati Business Courier

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal :: News

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal :: News

WSJ.com - Kodak Posts Preliminary Loss; Accounting Errors Delay Results

WSJ.com - Kodak Posts Preliminary Loss; Accounting Errors Delay Results

This is Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 at work ("internal controls"). No mention if it is spreadsheet related.

01/22/05 Spreadsheet Model at the Center of Debate over Syrup Mill

2theadvocate.com: News - Blanco, Odom disagree Governor leery of plan to finance syrup mill 01/22/05

The validity of a financial spreadsheet model is directly put into question in this story. How many major financial decisions get made under the "static" assumptions used in the initial model?

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal :: News

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal :: News: "International Broadcasting Leader Takes Proactive Approach to Reducing Risks Associated with Financial Spreadsheets"

Spreadsheet errors, news stories about spreadsheets with costly mistakes

http://www.eusprig.org/stories.htm

Spreadsheet mistakes: News stories collated by the European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group. They illustrate common problems and errors that occur with the uncontrolled use of spreadsheets, with comments on the risk and possible avoidance action.

Price-Waterhouse-Coopers. Sarbanes-Oxley "New Realities"

New Realities. Sarbanes-Oxley requirements (particularly "section 404," dealing with internal controls, stimulates companies to pay much more attention to the role of information technology systems (including spreadsheets) in the development and communication of financial statements.

Affordable Tool to Inventory Spreadsheets for SOX Compliance Audits - Systems Modelling Ltd

Affordable Tool to Inventory Spreadsheets for SOX Compliance Audits - Systems Modelling Ltd
This is just a press release, but mentions many of the issues facing firms over the use of spreadsheets in a SOX world.

IBM worker's number-crunching led to lawsuit against Big Blue

Quite a bit riding on a spreadsheet here...wonder if it's been audited and checked for errors. Full Story is here. Excerpt below:

That spreadsheet produced fallout for IBM.

"Without that [spreadsheet], I don't think we would have ended up filing suit," said Janet Krueger, a former IBM computer consultant involved in the suit. "His [Finlay's] work allowed us to quantify the impact of the changes."

12/04/04: Sarbanes Oxley End User Computing Controls

Press release about SOX and "End User Computing," much of which involves spreadsheet. Full story here, excerpt below:

End-user computing introduces a different level of risk to a company’s information technology and operational environment under Sarbanes Oxley. End-user computing generally involves the use of department-developed spreadsheets and databases, which are frequently used as tools in performing daily work. To the extent these spreadsheets are in place, they are an extension of the IT environment and results generated from them may, in assessing their impact, have an effect on the company's financial statements.

12/13/04: Compliance Pressures Prod IT to Limit Use of Spreadsheets

Hopefully a "better" spreadsheet (or other "business intelligence" tool) will emerge. But, one of the big challenges will be retaining the huge advantage of spreadsheets to do ad-hoc analysis that nobody designing the software envisioned. We'll see... Full story is here, excerpt below:

In the face of tighter regulatory controls for reporting financial data, many IT departments are wrestling to eliminate or control the widespread use of spreadsheets. But many end users are likely to rebel if the ubiquitous tool is taken away from them.

Some Excel Tips & Tricks from PC Magazine

Click Here

Some MS Office Tips & Tricks

Click Here

Ovitz-Priced Ouster Forseen

Big decision at Disney made with the help of a spreadsheet model

"One spreadsheet, he [Raymond Watson, former Disney board member] said, showed the potential cost of the 3 million stock options Ovitz would receive if he were fired without cause."

Actuate Equips Spreadsheets to Meet Compliance Requirements

New spreadsheet product by Actuate designed to facilitate better internal control and audit trail capability: e.Spreadsheet. Click here for presss release.

Halo and Excel 2003: RSS Feed into Excel

A Microsoft employee has demonstrated a useful feature of Excel 2003, the capability of importing data from RSS feeds into Excel. Link: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/003920.html

Spreadsheets and Sarbanes-Oxley

Press Release

Spreadsheet Alternative for Budgeting (Press Release)

Adaptive Planning Pioneers Alternative to Spreadsheet-Based Budgeting, Planning, Forecasting and Reporting. Link.

Spreadsheet Error: Corrected Diluted Share Computation

Carrizo Says 2Q Earnings Overstated, Revises Its Earnings Per Share Results
Monday November 15, 1:39 pm ET. NASDAQ CRZO, News (via Yahoo! Finance)

HOUSTON (AP) -- Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. on Monday revised its earnings per share results for the second quarter, saying a computational error led the drilling company to overstate the earnings.

The company's stock fell 48 cents, or 5 percent, to $9.12 on the news. The shares rose 38 cents Friday, a day after the earnings were released.

Carrizo said it actually earned 9 cents per share, rather than 10 cents per share as previously reported. The company said a spreadsheet error in the diluted shares outstanding led to the mistake. The actual number of diluted shares was 21,958,647, rather than 20,293,102.

For the first nine months of 2004, the company earned 34 cents per share on 21,546,329 diluted shares, rather than 36 cents per share on 20,253,906 shares, as previously reported.

From the full Press Release, "The Company has implemented additional procedures to assure the integrity of future share computations."

Spreadsheet Research Articles

Links to some articles:

• Spreadsheet Auditing, David Nixon, University of Salford Final Year Project, 2001.

Spreadsheet Tools Presentation

Presented at INFORMS Denver, October 2004. Session was sponsored by the Spreadsheet Productivity Research Interest Group (SPRIG).

• Main presentation (PowerPoint): Click Here
• Supplemental slides (PowerPoint): Click Here
• List of tools and their features (Excel): Click Here
  
• Excel files containing illustrations of tools: Click Here for directory listing.
  

Spreadsheet Error: Business Council Economic Survey Wrong

Business Council: Economic Survey Wrong. (12 October 2004, Reuters) "It was a computational error. The spreadsheet shifted so the wrong numbers appeared in the wrong columns," Cassidy said. "It was just one column on the spreadsheet." But, it's comforting to know that "it never happened before in the survey's history."