Modern Spreadsheet

The traditional electronic spreadsheet is a very useful tool. The spreadsheet has been around for more than 40 years, an indispensable tool of accountants, auditors, and analysts.  They are the right tool for many situations. But they are not the right choice in other situations.  Also, as I have pointed out in the past; the process of creating financial reports tends to be inefficient, error prone, described as an old school manual process.

The average Fortune 1000 company, Gartner Research says, uses approximately 800 spreadsheets in the process of creating external financial statements submitted for regulatory reporting.

How can the electronic spreadsheet be described as such a useful tool but also be part of such inefficient and error prone processes?  Sure, electronic spreadsheets are a vast improvement over paper-based spreadsheets.

But is there a "better spreadsheet"?  Is there a more modern approach, a "modern spreadsheet" that could overcome some of the limitations and inherent risks of the contemporary electronic spreadsheet?

I think that there is and I have summarized my thoughts in the document Special Purpose Logical Spreadsheet for Accountants, a call for a more modern professional tool for accountants, auditors, and analysts which addresses the significant limitations and inherent risks when making use of traditional electronic spreadsheets.



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