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Excerpt from the actual review document (Health NZ Financial Management Review, [0]): Notably, one major issue was through a significant reliance on the use of
by kleiba 2y ago
Excerpt from the actual review document (Health NZ Financial Management Review, [0]):
Notably, one major issue was through a significant reliance on the use of an Excel file to manage the consolidated financials of the organisation. This spreadsheet was the primary data file used by HNZ to manage its financial performance. It consolidated files from each district into a single spreadsheet, and key reports, such as the monthly finance report, were produced from it. The use of an Excel spreadsheet file to track and report financial performance for a $28bn expenditure organisation raises significant concerns, particularly when other more appropriate systems are present on the IT landscape.
This Excel file is flawed in that:
• Financial information was often 'hard-coded,' making it difficult to trace to
the source or have updated data flow through.
• Errors such as incorrectly releasing accruals or double-up releases were not
picked up until following periods.
• Changes to prior periods and FTE errors in district financial reporting Excel
submissions, would not flow through to consolidated file.
• The spreadsheet can be easy to manipulate information as there is limited
tracking to source information where information is not flowing directly from
accounting systems.
• It is highly prone to human error, such as accidental typing of a number or
omission of a zero.
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[0] https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/HNZ-Financial-Review-Report.pdf https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/HNZ-Financial-...
- Springtime 2y agoThese same bullet points and half the first paragraph are quoted in the OP article fwiw.
- kleiba 2y agoI think the important part that's not clearly portrayed in the OP article is that the "one Excel file" is actually not a single file used across the whole organisation, but rather a sort of master overview file that "consolidated files from each district into a single spreadsheet". I don't think that fact is made very clear in the OP article.
- tempaway64457 2y agoSo actually top level planning/reporting is done by everything flowing into one big spreadsheet - as crappy as that is, thats pretty common. Thats not the same as "managed finances with single Excel spreadsheet". Like, they do have other systems.
- rco8786 2y agoYea exactly my take. This seems like exactly what Excel is good at doing.
- nisegami 2y agoExcel isn't 'good' at anything. It is passable at a great many things.
- potato3732842 2y agoQuantity has a quality all its own.
- whymeogod 2y agoSounds like a certain LLM I've read about
- TMWNN 2y agoIt really does. Just the massive, massive ecosystem of online tutorials and answers and YouTube videos for every conceivable question [1] is incomparable. [1] Except the one you want the answer to at a given moment, amirite fellas?
- Suppafly 2y ago>[1] Except the one you want the answer to at a given moment, amirite fellas? Everytime I relearn how to do a vlookup, none of the examples online do what I want. It's like they are trying to do something completely opposite of what I want. It's super weird, because what I want to do is always a pretty common thing to need done.
- bArray 2y agoIf the Excel file is just a snapshot of the financial situation and it doesn't feed back into the main system, I find it harder to see the issue. Essentially it sounds like a manager takes the Excel file, makes some small changes, writes some equations, produces tables/graphs and then writes a report. Maybe there is an error in the reporting, but it can always be corrected. The idea isn't to explain where $16.129626356 bn dollars went, it's to explain where ~$16 bn dollars went. I can think of many processes just off the top of my head where commercial software outputs something like a CSV file, I add my data to it, then generate a report. I don't think the process is insane at all. We catch errors by predicting the data to be entered and flagging if off by 10%, and then also looking at the distribution of the data entered (it should look like a skewed bell curve). We then have a stand-up meeting where we review the outputs and then have a process for later correction. Of course it's possible for errors to creep in, but the errors are very unlikely and have somewhat limited scope. My point is that the situation in NZ seems entirely resolvable, and they shouldn't just throw it out if it was somewhat working. The whole "Excel" thing seems like a nothing-burger.
- cherryteastain 2y agoIf you can't explain where NZD129m of spending went, you screwed up big time.
- potato3732842 2y agoThere's a difference between "can't explain" and "isn't immediately visible on a high-ish level report"
- ceejayoz 2y agoIf you spend a billion and a couple years redoing the generally working system to (maybe!) increase the number of significant digits on a dashboard for no good reason, you may have screwed up even more.
- notorandit 2y agoAt page 42. Not a random number.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoSome of those defects seem as if they could be used to improve spreadsheet software more than they mean that spreadsheet software is intrinsically inappropriate.
- dzhiurgis 2y agoRead this as Deloitte trying to sell some $1b worth of consulting to replace a spreadsheet.