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Whitepaper
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Developer tools such as drilldown, subtract matrix, single stepping - recognize that a financial model is a living, growing piece of software. There is a constant need for enhancing logic, debugging, and re-validating the model. Jack, the new CFO, is bound to ask the question - "Why has operating income taken such a nosedive?!" A quick drilldown shows that part of the problem is that some fool told you to subtract out Interest Expense -- but that also Operating Expenses are way out of line. A second drilldown on Operating Expenses shows that Executive Compensation is up 45% vs. last year. The third drilldown points the finger at Executive Compensation in the Finance Department. Or Liz, one of the sharper analysts in the New Ventures department wants to know why she is getting different results with the latest model revision. You do a subtract matrix to look at old vs new results, and find out that she has updated inflation assumptions since the last run of the model. You thank your lucky stars (that it wasn't a bug you introduced!) and call her back. You make a mental note to use this technique to test model revisions before they go out to the users.
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