We use Microsoft Excel extensively in our work to analyze companies, value them, build tables and charts for reports and presentations and for internal needs. With this expertise, we can offer you a wide range of services involving the use of the powerful spreadsheet package that Excel represents.

Historical Models / Financial Data Entry

We understand the data

We regularly sift through SEC filings, press releases and other documents in search for important information. Importantly, our financial background and experience allow us to execute such tasks thoughtfully and quickly, understanding what we’re doing and not simply executing work mechanically like robots. We know where to look for particular data and how to make sense of it. We are also efficient at importing data into Excel from PDF files.

We eliminate errors

We use various productivity tools (including tools developed by us using Excel’s VBA) to greatly speed up importing of data into Excel, while minimizing human error at the same time. Manual work is minimized, thus minimizing the chance of errors. We never enter numbers by hand unless data is in a format that can’t be copied, and we use proprietary tools to ensure that lines in tables aren’t mixed up (we don’t mindlessly copy whole columns of data across without making sure the rows are in correct order). And we always cross-check numbers to make sure all is correct. We regularly find errors in original filings because they fail our checks! We employ validation checks wherever possible: total assets must equal total liabilities, ending cash in the cash flow statement must equal the cash in the balance sheet while the net income from the income statement is directly fed into the cash flow statement, among other things.

Fast turnaround

Often, we can gather data from SEC filings within hours from our customers requesting it, which means same day or overnight delivery in most cases (our North American customers often have the models done by their morning due to time zone differences). It may take just 1.5-2 hours for us to input 5 years worth of financials (including quarterly data for 3 years) into a blank template (this is the typical time, the actual execution time may vary with the complexity and volume of data in SEC filings).

Financial Modelling / Projections

We have extensive experience building financial models in Microsoft Excel and offer various services in this regard:

• building forecasts of financial statements (including full balance sheet and cash flow statements) with scenarios;
• completing partial models (e.g. when you have the income statement forecast done, we can add forecasts of the balance sheet and cash flows);
• updating existing financial models (e.g. if you have a financial model that simply needs to be updated with recently released financials or reworked due to changed assumptions).

Our guiding principles in financial modelling are:

•  Total control over input variables;
•  Minimizing human error; and
•  Appealing appearance and easy to use interface.

When building models, we don’t use plug items to make the balance sheet balance. As with historical models, projected financial statements must reconcile at all times and our templates always include the required checks. At the same time, we minimize the amount of manually entered data in a model to a single number for each parameter (so if your want to change something, you only change a parameter once, and the change propagates throughout the whole model). Our proprietary Excel tools allow us to process data with minimum manual work, minimizing human error. We always try to make our models transparent for the user, commenting on assumptions, allowing the final user to use their own judgement. We also always mark clearly the cells with manual inputs versus those with formulas, so that you can update the model quickly and easily if you need to.

Excel programming

Given our expertise with Excel and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), we offer Excel automation/programming services. VBA is an extremely powerful tool that goes beyond recording simple macros (although macros are also a powerful extension of Excel’s functionality). It allows creating customized user interfaces and automation procedures that can simplify and speed up the work for our customers.