When Excel Just Can't Hadle the Workload

Hello Folks

Part of my job is to develop reasonably complex financial models in
Excel for project appraisal purposes however I have recently started on
an internal project that I think is too big for excel to handle
efficiently and robustly. I do most of my work in Excel and will
continue to do so but I am looking for suggestions for alternative
software for this one project that will give me all the benfits of the
complex modelling capabilities of Excel but with none of the
limitations. Let me explain the project.

The company I work for has approx 150 subsidiary entities which are
either subsidiary companies or JV's. Those are split into approx 6
sectors. Each Company (or JV) will hold one or more properties (we are
in the property sector and, essentially, we buy the property, refurbish
it then sell it). Each property has, on average, between 1 and 200
tenants (a property may be a large tower or shopping centre). We
prepare forecasts for each company which are then consolidated at a
sector level and then further at our holding company level. The
company level forecasts are more bullish than the sector level
forecasts, which are in turn more bullish than the Holding Company
forecasts, which means that the forecasting system we are looking to
develop is a bottom up approach with the ability to flex key
assumptions at each consolidation level (eg rental income per square
foot/metre may be GBP20.00 at company level, GBP18.00 at sector level
and GBP15.00 at Holding Company level). I produced a single comapny
single property template model in Excel which was a 2mb model. I want
the user to be able to "click to add" additional properties in a
company (with no limit) and to be able to "click to add" additional
tenants in a property (with no limit). It is easy to see that Excel
could not handle this (considering the single company, single property
model was 2mb), even at the company level model, never mind
consolidating 150 such companies.

I hope that I have explained this well enough - if not please do ask
Q's - but you can see that the solution that I need is a kind of
part-excel, part-database piece of forecasting and consolidating
software (with workflow? perhaps). I appreciate that some of the more
technical amongst you could probably build this using a combination of
excel & access but I am looking for software suggestions that would
give me a solution that was the closest to an "off the shelf" package
as possible.

Hope you can help and TIA,

S

Three suggestions -

SQL Server with Analysis Services

Essbase

Hyperion Planning


"stuart_bisset@yahoo.com" wrote:

> Hello Folks
>
> Part of my job is to develop reasonably complex financial models in
> Excel for project appraisal purposes however I have recently started on
> an internal project that I think is too big for excel to handle
> efficiently and robustly. I do most of my work in Excel and will
> continue to do so but I am looking for suggestions for alternative
> software for this one project that will give me all the benfits of the
> complex modelling capabilities of Excel but with none of the
> limitations. Let me explain the project.
>
> The company I work for has approx 150 subsidiary entities which are
> either subsidiary companies or JV's. Those are split into approx 6
> sectors. Each Company (or JV) will hold one or more properties (we are
> in the property sector and, essentially, we buy the property, refurbish
> it then sell it). Each property has, on average, between 1 and 200
> tenants (a property may be a large tower or shopping centre). We
> prepare forecasts for each company which are then consolidated at a
> sector level and then further at our holding company level. The
> company level forecasts are more bullish than the sector level
> forecasts, which are in turn more bullish than the Holding Company
> forecasts, which means that the forecasting system we are looking to
> develop is a bottom up approach with the ability to flex key
> assumptions at each consolidation level (eg rental income per square
> foot/metre may be GBP20.00 at company level, GBP18.00 at sector level
> and GBP15.00 at Holding Company level). I produced a single comapny
> single property template model in Excel which was a 2mb model. I want
> the user to be able to "click to add" additional properties in a
> company (with no limit) and to be able to "click to add" additional
> tenants in a property (with no limit). It is easy to see that Excel
> could not handle this (considering the single company, single property
> model was 2mb), even at the company level model, never mind
> consolidating 150 such companies.
>
> I hope that I have explained this well enough - if not please do ask
> Q's - but you can see that the solution that I need is a kind of
> part-excel, part-database piece of forecasting and consolidating
> software (with workflow? perhaps). I appreciate that some of the more
> technical amongst you could probably build this using a combination of
> excel & access but I am looking for software suggestions that would
> give me a solution that was the closest to an "off the shelf" package
> as possible.
>
> Hope you can help and TIA,
>
> S
>
>