Will the Excel Spreadsheet Ever Die In The Audit World?

My thought or question can be a dragnet type of question, although I look at all the automated software that are out there and I wonder, will “spreads” stop being the bread that supplies the butter (software)?  When it comes down to it all, automated software still needs Bill Gates; or do they?  What it really comes down to is that Excel keeps up with all the trends and never lets the Booming automation world get ahead of them, or should I say overshadow them?

All in all, this is great for each side of the “box”, meaning every company stays outside of the box, creating new technologies to make the box larger (inside box = Excel).   This trend has helped the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) world, the Compliance field in banks, as well as ORSA laws that have brought on all new ERM standards that are going to shake the insurance world like Dodd Frank did in the financial world.

Perhaps Excel is striving to make the box bigger so that software companies make it easier for companies to keep up with the ever-growing regulatory scrutiny. This, by large, makes the guy that stayed in the box still grow without the buzz word on the street.  I don’t know if I have answered my own question or opened Pandora’s Box, though I can tell you that the Auditors and Compliance officers need more than just “spreads”.

Using Spreads and sharing them through emails or shared servers can cause mistakes, just like playing the elementary school game “Telephone”.  Some Audit departments have woken from this game to jump on the cloud and are loving it, yet still have not washed their hands totally of “spreads”.

With regulatory compliance software, you can map all the regulations to your audits and track all results related to regulations. You can share this data throughout your team to assist in the project management side of things. GRC tools like the ones for power and utilities help streamline and automate compliance woes in a more sophisticated manner.

So……..will “Spreads” ever die?

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