How can CFOs Turn Spreadsheets from a Budgeting Tool into a Budgeting Application?

More than three decades after their introduction, the popularity of spreadsheets shows no sign of abating. Spreadsheets are the de facto ‘workhorse’ of the finance function and have ridden out every successive advance in technology. They can be found on laptops, viewed on smartphones and now shared in the cloud. Such is the pervasiveness of spreadsheets that there probably is not an organisation or finance professional in the world that does not rely on them – and with good cause. Spreadsheets are truly liberating. They allow business users to quickly develop solutions out of the gaze of the IT department, to pave over the cracks in existing processes or to create applications where no readily available solutions can be purchased off the shelf.