Best Practices in Business Analysis / Financial Analysis. There are powerful ways to utilize Excel Automation to reduce reporting time, error rate, and increase ease of update.

1. Automation in
Excel Reporting
BUSINESS / FINANCIAL ANALYSIS - BEST PRACTICES
BY MARCO KIESEWETTER

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Overview
• Why Automation?
• Never again Copy & Paste
• UsingVBA for massive calculations
• The Master Setup Page
• ErrorTracking

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Why Automation?

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Why Automation?
• Time savings
• Faster turnaround time, more frequent updates possible
• Freed up time for new developments & process improvements
• Reduction of human error
• Copy & paste, involved manual updates cause mistakes
• Overlooked adjustments of values, dates, names & calculations

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Never Again Copy & Paste

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Use of ETL / SQL
• In many cases it is possible for IT departments to access business
systems via an API or other tools and to store the data on local SQL
servers (ETL)
• Access the data from these SQL servers instead
• Instant push-of-a-button updates possible, even for end users of reports
• Possibility to move many calculations and table mash-ups into SQL
• No need for lengthy calculations in Excel
• Especially SUMIFs can take very long in Excel but can be lightning fast in SQL
• No more “pulling down formulas” next to pivot tables, which can easily be overlooked
• ManyVLOOKUPs can be achieved in SQL already
• Same results every time

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No copy & paste on manual reports
• Even if the need for manual reporting out of ERPs exist, some automation can still
be achieved
• For example using reports out of Salesforce:
• Prepare a network location to which everyone who will update an Excel report has access
• Run the Salesforce report and save it as CSV in this location, give it a meaningful name but do
not include date or time in the name
• Access this CSV file with Excel (Data > Get External Data > FromText) instead of pasting its data
into an Excel sheet
• Alternatively link it to an Access database, do mash-ups & custom calculations in Access and use this
database as source for Excel
• Next time simply run the Salesforce report again and overwrite the CSV file with the new
download
• The connection to this CSV in your Excel/Access file will not change but it will now pull the fresh data

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Using VBA for massive
calculations

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Why use VBA for calculations?
• Large reports with many calculations on many rows of data can take very
long to calculate
• Sometimes calculation can become too complex
• I.e. dynamically translating “5 hours between May 10 and May 20” into correct
amounts for each calendar week that includes part of this time period.
• These Excel calculations are very resource intensive. In most cases it is not
possible to use the computer for other work at the same time
• These calculations may repeat before saving a spreadsheet, costing even
more idle time
• UsingVBA for large calculations leaves the computer usable and the
calculated data is “values only” data, which speeds up saving and working
with the file

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Also use VBA for automation
• Updating several pivot tables from several external data sources in
the right order
• Automatically start pulling data and calculating the report before you
arrive at work in the morning
• Copying formulas and pasting them as values for the distribution
version of the spreadsheet
• Deleting and hiding tabs that are needed for running the report but
that do not need to be in the distribution version
• Automatically saving reports in the right folders with the right file
name (that can include date and time of saving in the name)

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The Master Setup Tab

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The Master Setup Tab
• One tab with all settings, error checks and buttons forVBA
automation
• Have slicers for all pivot tables that need updates and/or checks of specific filters
• Have error checks all in one place, visible together at any time
• Have all manual setup values and calculated master values (i.e. report date) in
one place
• Have an update history available to see what automation ran and when

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Master Setup Tab
SOME EXAMPLES AND EXPLANATIONS

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Example of a Master Setup Tab

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Automatically start pulling data and run
calculations in the morning to have it ready when
you arrive at work

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Console style log that shows
step by step what the
automation did, when it did
and how long it took (Helps
with performance
improvements and trouble
shooting)

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Automatically determining today’s date and
yesterday’s date for change reporting
(Automate that on a Monday: Yesterday = Friday)
Allow overrides to account for holidays, unscheduled
updates etc.

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Arrange automation buttons in order with a brief
guideline on how to update the report
Color code instructions to help noticing where to
make changes

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Error Tracking

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Check if formulas next to pivot tables reach all the way
down to the last line of the pivot table.
Conditional Formatting on Errors to make them stand
out right away.
Similar error checks should be used to compare data
points that should be consistent across sheets if
everything works as expected.

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Other Possible Checks on the Setup Tab
• Compare totals across tabs and display differences
• Is one total different?Why?
• Compare totals to expected values
• Do the numbers make sense?
• Compare dates to expected values
• Are data sources out of date / wrong?
• Explore ratios and evaluate their validity
• i.e. hours worked month to date : days so far in the month
• Use conditional formatting to emphasize values that appear wrong

22. ThankYou
QUESTIONS?
Reach out:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcokiesewetter