Excel Dashboard

Are you using an Excel Dashboard today?

I have seen some very sophisticated designs using Excel to create dashboards that summarize a great deal of information. It is highly customizable and in the right hands can create beautiful reports.

I have also seen the panic when the excel expert is sick or is no longer with the firm and other analysts are pouring over hundreds of and hundreds of formulas, cells, and sometimes vba code to try and piece together a report for an urgent presentation.

A few other drawbacks for Excel Dashboards are:

• Only one user can change and update an Excel Dashboard at a time
• With a printed version, you never know if you have the latest Dashboard in your hand
  
• Not consistent from file to file. This is especially true when you have one dashboard per investment.
  
• Hard to make broad changes across all files

If these are issues that you are facing, perhaps a web based dashboard with an underlying database structure would be the right solution for you.

Benefits of Web Based Dashboards

In a web based system, any number of people can view the dashboard in a secure fashion. You can even give different levels of access to different classes of users.

It's also very easy to get the latest dashboard with simply a browser. You might be on a business trip in Europe, at home in Connecticut, or on vacation in Cancun. By logging in to your web based dashboard, you have the latest information at your fingertips.

Reporting becomes much easier when all the information is in one database. New additions, changes and reconciliations are within reach. Your data becomes more reliable. You will see fewer emails with 'one more update' being sent out to the team.

Excel still has its purposes in environments that are not uniform and each dashboard must be totally unique.

If you are facing some of the issues we outline here and would like to explore web based dashboards, give us a call.

Clevertech provides cutting edge custom web application solutions that leverage database technologies and combined with our own experts who have a knack at organizing client data. Call us to schedule an appointment to discuss your data needs at 516-869-4970.

Discover data gold in your reports

You're growing quickly. Your time is short. And you know that by organizing your data, you have the best chance to continue your growth in a controlled fashion.

As a successful manager, you have reports today that give you most of the information you need. It's not just luck that makes you a success. The reports you use today have the critical elements that you track.

Reporting Gold

But how long does it take to create those reports? Perhaps you ask for reports once a month as part of a major effort on the part of your staff. And the staff is always telling you how long everything takes and that they need more help in getting in done.

Put all the important reports together and make a list of the critical items they have. Add wish list items that would be helpful to your business. Perhaps reports the auditors like you to run when they show up. A few measures that you'd like to see for each investment. Trigger events that would bring the most urgent issues to the top.

Maybe you have a few reports that you correlate together. A master report that gives you a snapshot of the business. Perhaps it's an opportunity report that allows you to focus on the leads that are most profitable.

This exercise allows you to mark your goals. The real critical elements that need to be managed. You are creating a focus that defines the organization principles you want to follow in your business.

The focus can be adjusted, added to, and even changed. But without a process that reviews your focal point, powerful data organization can not begin.

Client Example

The key analyst report was an Excel "dashboard" that tracked dozens of data points on their company's balance sheet, income statement, cash flow and other financial measures. Each investment could have different data points that were important.

The key management report was an Excel snapshot of all the investments, and most critically the interest rate charged per investment and therefore the interest earned and associated risk factors.

Creating a organizational structure to manage the analyst report is very different than the structure to manage the management report.

We choose to move from Excel and create multiple related structures in a SQL database. The top structure were the data elements that related to the management reports.

Under the management data structures we were able to create a complex data structure for the analyst report which will be a subject of a future post. The critical point is that the structures were linked. And this means reports can pull from BOTH the analyst report and the management report to create new and nuanced analysis.

Just as an example, it is now possible to create a risk factor triggers that is based on an accounts receivable calculation that will only show in the management report next to the monthly revenue if the trigger is tripped.

Clevertech provides cutting edge custom web application solutions that leverage database technologies and combined with our own experts who have a knack at organizing client data. Call us to schedule an appointment to discuss your data needs at 516-869-4970.

To answer simple questions, you need good organization

If you are managing complex financial data as a hedge fund, asset manager, or any number of structured finance products, you want to have certain simple questions answered quickly and at any time.

Perhaps it's an investor calling who is concerned about your exposure to an industry, or to a particular name.

"What's your exposure across all your investments to X ?"

Simple question. Now how are you organized to be able to answer that question?

The standard response would be - let me get back to you and then you turn to your team to dig into their excel spreadsheets to figure it out.

Excel is a great tool. It is my favorite solution as a flexible scalpel that allows for powerful calculations of data.

However, if you want to organize your data across multiple investments that do not lend themselves to a simple chart, a database product would be a better tool. And if you want to have multiple staff access it at the same time while allowing management to run reports that answer the simple questions instantaneously, a web based database application makes the most sense.

With a web based application, you would be able to give your investors access to certain details so they can answer the questions themselves.

This type of data empowerment makes simple questions that are essential to your business - easy to answer.

To empower your data, you have to organize it well. Our next article discusses how to organize your data in a way that makes your investors go "wow".

Clevertech provides cutting edge custom web application solutions that leverage database technologies and combined with our own experts who have a knack at organizing client data. Call us to schedule an appointment to discuss your data needs at 516-869-4970.