Cunha, et al (2011)Spreadsheets are notoriously error-prone.
Price (2006)The untested spreadsheet is as dangerous and untrustworthy as an untested program.
Nixon & O'Hara (2010)Spreadsheet errors are still the rule rather than the exception.
Rust, et al (2006)Spreadsheets have a notoriously high number of faults.
Beaman, et al (2005)Errors in spreadsheets... result in incorrect decisions being made and significant losses incurred.
Teo & Tan (1999)Most executives do not really check or verify the accuracy or validity of [their] spreadsheets...
Mireault (2015)Developing an error-free spreadsheet has been a problem since the beginning of end-user computing.
Sakal, et al (2015)Overconfidence is one of the most substantial causes of spreadsheet errors.
Abraham, et al (2005)Spreadsheets contain errors at an alarmingly high rate.
Panko (2014)Despite overwhelming and unanimous evidence... companies have continued to ignore spreadsheet error risks.
Caulkins, Morrison, & Weidemann (2008)Spreadsheets are commonly used and commonly flawed.
Kruck & Sheetz (2001)...few incidents of spreadsheet errors are made public and these are usually not revealed by choice.
Bock (2016)Spreadsheet development must embrace extensive testing in order to be taken seriously as a profession.
Panko (2015)Research on spreadsheet errors is substantial, compelling, and unanimous.
Murphy (2007)60% of large companies feel 'Spreadsheet Hell' describes their reliance on spreadsheets.
Panko (1999)Every study, without exception, has found error rates much higher than organizations would wish to tolerate.
Bishop & McDaid (2007)The quality and reliability of spreadsheets is known to be poor.
Abraham & Erwig (2007)Spreadsheet errors have resulted in huge financial losses.
Miller (2005)Untested spreadsheets are riddled with errors.
Caulkins, Morrison, & Weidemann (2006)Your spreadsheets may be disasters in the making.
Powell, Baker, & Lawson (2009)1% of all formulas in operational spreadsheets are in error.
Chadwick (2002)Spreadsheet errors... a great, often unrecognised, risk to corporate decision making & financial integrity.
Howard (2005)Spreadsheets... pose a greater threat to your business than almost anything you can imagine.
Mireault & Gresham (2015)Spreadsheets are often hard, if not impossible, to understand.
Reschenhofer & Matthes (2015)Spreadsheet shortcomings can significantly hamper an organization's business operation.
Csernoch & Biro (2013)Studies have shown that there is a high incidence of errors in spreadsheets.
Abreu, et al (2015)Spreadsheets can be viewed as a highly flexible programming environment for end users.
Abreu, et al (2015)Despite being staggeringly error prone, spreadsheets are a highly flexible programming environment.
Hermans & van der Storm (2015)Spreadsheets are the most popular live programming environments, but they are also notoriously fault-prone.
Ayalew (2007)A significant proportion of spreadsheets have severe quality problems.
Sajaniemi (1998)The results given by spreadsheets are often just wrong.
Panko (2008)94% of the 88 spreadsheets audited in 7 studies have contained errors.
Panko & Ordway (2005)Most large spreadsheets have dozens or even hundreds of errors.
Ross (1996)A lot of decisions are being made on the basis of some bad numbers.
Panko (2013)It is irrational to expect large error-free spreadsheets.
Galletta, et al (1993)Even obvious, elementary errors in very simple, clearly documented spreadsheets are... difficult to find.
Kulesz & Ostberg (2013)Spreadsheets are more fault-prone than other software.
Durusau & Hunting (2015)Spreadsheets are dangerous to their authors and others.
Burnett & Myers (2014)The software that end users are creating... is riddled with errors.
Caulkins, Morrison, & Weidemann (2006)People tend to believe their spreadsheets are more accurate than they really are.
Dunn (2010)Spreadsheets are extraordinarily and unacceptably prone to error.
Irons (2003)Spreadsheet errors are pervasive, stubborn, ubiquitous and complex.
Panko & Halverson (1996)Every study that has looked for errors has found them... in considerable abundance.
Krishna, et al (2001)Programmers exhibit unwarranted confidence in the correctness of their spreadsheets.
Colbenz (2005)Errors in spreadsheets are as ubiquitous as spreadsheets themselves.
Raffensperger (2001)Never assume a spreadsheet is right, even your own.
Nixon & O'Hara (2010)It is now widely accepted that errors in spreadsheets are both common and potentially dangerous.
Chen & Chan (2000)Spreadsheets are easy to use and very hard to check.
Panko (2007)The issue is not whether there is an error but how many errors there are and how serious they are.
Paine (2001)Spreadsheets are alarmingly error-prone to write.
Data cleansing is an important activity within Excel and one that we find ourselves doing day in day out, sometimes without even knowing it.
My top data cleansing techniques are:
This article describes a situation where there was a significant difference between the calculated and expected values.
The problem was caused by the way that Excel rounds values for display purposes, but the formula is calculating using the actual cell content.
Using the ROUND
function can help resolve this type of problem.
When you think of visualizing parts to a whole in Excel charts the first thing that's likely to come to mind is the pie chart, or if you're Homer Simpson then you might think of doughnut charts!
Using football as inspiration, let's look at our options for visualizing parts to a whole data using a standard set of football statistics.
Chart types explored in this article include:
Obviously, we don't want our PivotTables littered with #DIV/0!
and #NULL!
errors if we're presenting them in a report. That would just create unnecessary questions and we're busy enough.
Thankfully Excel PivotTable error handling is easy to control via the PivotTable Options. This article shows you how.
As a bonus, this article also discusses what to display when the prior period was zero. Specifically, is the percentage change from nothing to something equal to 100%?
Mastering Excel takes some experience and patience, but it's easy to make mistakes even if you've been using it for a long time. Sometimes, choices seem like a brilliant idea—until they're not, and the resulting problems are hard to troubleshoot.
In this article, I share 10 ways to avoid actions that seem good... at the time:
The tutorial shows how to use IFERROR
in Excel to catch errors and replace them with a blank cell, another value or a custom message.
You will learn how to use the IFERROR
function with VLOOKUP
and INDEX MATCH
, and how it compares to IF ISERROR
and IFNA
.
Nested IF
formulas are extremely useful for complex decision making on a spreadsheet, but they can also be long, messy and convoluted.
This blog post explores 4 alternatives which are easier, faster and cleaner than the classic nested IF
:
IFS
function.VLOOKUP
for an exact match.VLOOKUP
for a range lookup.CHOOSE
function.When it comes to VBA, it's almost too easy to make a mistake. These mistakes can cost you greatly, both in time and in frustration.
In this post, I'd like to help you avoid these typical mistakes and make you a better VBA programmer:
.Select
/ .Activate
.Variant
type.Application.ScreenUpdating = False
.Sub
/ Function
TOO LONG.For
/ If
rabbit hole.Learn why using an Excel Table as the source of a Pivot Table can save time and prevent errors.
The reasons why you should use Tables for the source data range of your Pivot Tables are: