I discovered another mis-use of Excel this week. We have a client that receives a transaction download from their bank. They then import this into Dynamics GP to create general ledger transactions.
The problem is that several years ago someone crafted a nifty Excel spreadsheet to format the data in order to facilitate the import into GP. In the spreadsheet there is a hefty reliance on macros to organize, edit, and fill the source data. It may have worked initially, but now it does not; and is not worth the trouble to fix.
We will most likely develop a simple SQL Server / program code application to do the work. It will most likely take less time to deliver, and cost the client less.
Excel is a wonderful tool for analysis, and reporting; and for modeling business processes. It is not a good tool for reliable, well controlled business transaction processing.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
Hey Steve,
We may have to agree to disagree on this one. I like Excel as a bridge in many cases like this because it's so flexible and often, clients have Excel savvy folks on board who can make changes themselves without having to go back to consultants every time something changes. I'll be happy to stipulate that "it depends" a lot on the company and the situation but as Microsoft keeps breathing more life into Excel it gets tough to promote Excel for some things and denigrate it for others.
Mark
Post a Comment