Finance & Management Reporting
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Designed and Developed by Paul M. Critchlow © 2026
“When Spreadsheets Lie – that false confidence in spreadsheets.” released 10 Feb 2026
Hard-Coded Numbers Are the Quietest Financial Risk
One of the first things I check in financial spreadsheets is whether formulas contain typed numbers.
Formulas like:
=152.01 + 1.069567826…
These usually appear after:
A prior calculation was done once
The result was typed back into another formula
The original reference was removed
At that point, the spreadsheet becomes a record of past answers, not a live model.
The danger is subtle: The numbers don’t change when inputs change, and no error is triggered.
This is how financial reports stay “stable” while reality shifts underneath them.
Question to consider:
If the raw data changed today, are you confident that every dependent total would update automatically?
Take the survey: https://tinyurl.com/pmcsheetsurvey.
You can contact me directly at trainer@pmcza.com
#FinancialReporting #DataIntegrity #Governance #SpreadsheetRisk #TrustButVerify
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