Authors
Louise Pryor
Abstract
The usual aim of spreadsheet audit is to verify correctness. There are two problems with this:
- First, it is often difficult to tell whether the spreadsheets in question are correct.
- Second, even if they are, they may still give the wrong results.
These problems are explained in this paper, which presents the key criteria for judging a spreadsheet and discusses how those criteria can be achieved.
Sample
Unfortunately, many spreadsheets are built in such a way that even if they are correct to start with, they are unlikely to stay that way for long.
One issue is that long or complex formulae, especially those containing many nested IF statements, are difficult to understand and change. This example formula has seven conditional branches.
Publication
2003, EuSpRIG
