Software Feature: An introduction to Excel-driven reporting tools. By John Stokdyk

It's just cheaper to get somebody to write a particular report.

This whole area smacks of a gravy train.

Crikey - that's some serious research there John. Hats off for thoroughness.

I don't need to go into the many reasons why I detest Excel as a reporting tool or the blind reliance by many on something that was never designed with that purpose in mind. In that regard, I echo Alastair's comments.

The bigger issue is why ISVs don't build in reporting as part of their general offering. MICL did this 20 years ago when it launched Finax - one of the best accounts production software packages I ever saw. Trying to tack it on later as an afterthought is really hard (and expensive) development work.

Which in part explains why so few accounting packages include reporting as standard functionality.

The other thing to note is that Excel reports are not portable. They're rooted to the network on which they're generated and even then they're not capable of being shared. That seems utterly crazy in a world where sharing and collaboration are the current watchwords (if only in theory but soon to be in practice.)

"Determine your reporting needs!
Whenever you approach any new technology, start with an assessment of what you've got at the moment. Then consider the things your system doesn't deliver that you would like it to, and you can begin to get an idea of where you want to go and what tools you'll need."

surely this falls down straight away for excel. Excel is used because the user know no better. Give it any thought and you tend to end up with a non-excel solution!

the length of this report, and the variety and complexity it describes is the nub of the problem. As a user you might know what you want to achieve, but how on earth do you work out how to get it, and then get it for a reasonable cost?

There is an horrific amount of choice, behind what is a relatively simple outcome to describe, and it is made worse by the fact that what most vendors want to sell is consultancy at £2000 per day or more and licences at £X thousand per seat plus annual maintenance, plus ongoing consultancy opportunity - you can see why the big 4 like this market place, and they don't even dominate it! It is much cheaper to employ an accountant or 2, give them excel, and let them get on with it!

"Auditors such as PwC specifically view "end-user computing" (aka spreadsheets) as one of the most likely areas of risk for financial reporting errors."

wonder how much the possibility for consultancy fees on the back of this viewpoint drives it as a viewpoint?

Know it sounds cynical, but there is no market for the add-ins and consultancy if the risk is discounted. And given the risk is about poor design and lack of proper development controls; and mostly about users suspending common sense when viewing a spreadsheet, then there are better (more effective) solutions than consultancy and add-in programs.

""Even big packages like Cognos do no more than a pivot table does - the difference is that they can do it with better accuracy, control, formatting and repeatability," says Carter."

I understand the sentiments behind this statement, but it is flawed. Assuming it is referring to the Cognos BI tools, then they are able to form part of a process, in a way that excel pivot tables never can.