Openbox Public Beta – Key updates and bug fixes since the private beta closed
The Openbox private beta closed late last year, and since then we’ve been concentrating on delivering the improvements that beta users asked for. We’re grateful to the dedicated users who have continued to send us additional suggestions, and we’ve been working to include those as well. So, as we launch the public beta, here is […]
The Multi-Billion Dollar Excel Error that didn’t happen today
Excel is involved in every major transaction, every capital investment, every business sale, large or small and most financial forecasts. Decisions worth billions of dollars every single day are based on Excel models. Recent weeks have seen multiple headlines about Excel errors. Excel has been blamed for major losses, and in the case of UK […]
Public Health England’s COVID-19 Excel Error
Here at Gridlines, we are always banging on about spreadsheet risk and the risk of errors in Excel. Usually, we keep it light: “The world’s largest legal weed business had its accounts go up in smoke after a spreadsheet error caused it to underreport its losses.” Or perhaps even….. “Bargain Booze’s spreadsheet hell sinks the […]
Openbox Beta: Round 1 Retrospective
Round 1 Retrospective It feels like only last week that we kicked off the beta process, and here we at the end of Round 2. There has been a huge amount of input from our beta users, and we’re incredibly grateful for their time – particularly during the current crisis – in making Openbox more […]
Can we build a Project Finance Model in 20 minutes?
Thanks to everybody who attended the Financial Modelling meet up to watch me put my reputation on the line. If you didn’t manage to get into the zoom call you can watch the recording of the live stream on YouTube below. We are looking for professional modellers to join a closed beta which will start […]
The Business Analysis Lifecycle
As modellers it’s easy to focus on the technical details within a model and to lose sight of the bigger picture. The business analysis lifecycle is a framework which is useful in putting into context what we are doing as modellers, and more importantly, why we are doing it. Kenny explains the framework in this […]
Why implementing a financial modelling standard is hard
At Gridlines, we care deeply about Standards in modelling. In this video, Kenny Whitelaw-Jones discusses some of the challenges that modelling teams must overcome to implement standards. He also discussed findings that were uncovered through a recent survey of financial modellers. Standards in Modelling Standards in modelling have been discussed at length for many years. […]
The Disconnect Between Modellers and Business Decisions
I was talking to someone a few weeks ago about a joint project team. This person referred to someone in the team as being “just the modeller”. That really irritated me. It annoys me when people view modelling as being easy, something for the juniors, something that anyone can do. In my experience this is […]
Understanding our Bias as Modellers
Our bias as modellers Our human biases can sometimes get in the way of effective analysis. Whenever you are changing something in your model, running a sensitivity or trying to answer an analytical question, it is always useful to create a hypothesis about what you think is going to happen. For instance, when the IRR […]
