Benchmark Budget Review Challenge for Excel Experts

The Importance of Budget Review

Budget review is a critical process for financial planning and analysis (FP&A). If financial reports are published directly from an ERP system without review, the organization operates blindly. CFOs and controllers take significant risks when relying solely on unprocessed ERP-generated financial statements. These reports consist of thousands—if not tens of thousands—of transaction treatments, many of which are coded manually or automatically.

The concern lies not in correctly processed transactions but in errors, misallocations, and necessary adjustments such as accruals and prepayments. Budget holders are uniquely positioned to identify these discrepancies, as some misallocations arise from informal arrangements between departments that are not captured in digital data. Without these reviews, organizations face financial inaccuracies, poor decision-making, and credibility risks. In extreme cases, budget discrepancies can lead to professional consequences, including demotions or promotions based on incorrect financial reports.

Having worked in this field for over a decade across multiple industries, I can attest that budget review is essential in every organization worldwide. Before finalizing financial reports, budget holders must review draft accounts, flag discrepancies, and ensure necessary adjustments are made. If errors are corrected in subsequent periods rather than the current one, it distorts reported figures, making financial statements misleading and difficult to interpret. This can lead to confusion at the executive level, as financial adjustments obscure meaningful performance insights.

To mitigate these risks, budget holders must have both oversight and accountability in the review process. They must confirm that financial reports accurately reflect reality before publication. This challenge aims to demonstrate an efficient enterprise-level Excel solution that facilitates this process while inviting the Excel expert community to improve or refine it.

The Benchmark Challenge: An Enterprise-Level Excel Solution

How the Solution Works

1. Budget Holder Review Process

• Budget holders receive a standardized spreadsheet template containing a single blank sheet.
• Upon opening, they select their operating unit from a cascading dropdown menu. These dropdowns display only the units they have permission to access.
• Once an operating unit is selected, they click the Get button, which populates the sheet with the current draft profit and loss statement from the ERP system.
• Budget holders review the figures, identifying anomalies such as unusually high or low values.
• By selecting a specific figure, a transaction breakdown appears on the right-hand side, retrieved directly from the general ledger (GL).
• If a misallocated transaction is identified (e.g., a prepayment recorded in the wrong period), the budget holder adds a note requesting correction.
• If an expected transaction is missing, they can add an accrual entry.
• Once satisfied, they click the Put button to submit their review.
• The process is efficient, taking only minutes per budget holder.

2. Finance Team Oversight

• The finance team has access to a Review spreadsheet, which remains empty until populated by clicking Get.
• This sheet collects all comments and adjustments from budget holders across 400 operating units in 90 cities and 50 countries.
• The finance team processes these inputs, making necessary journal adjustments.
• Journal entries are automatically generated in CSV format, which ERP systems can import directly, eliminating manual data entry.

3. Controller Monitoring

• The controller accesses a Tracking spreadsheet to monitor the process.
• Clicking Get provides a real-time status update, showing which budget holders have completed their reviews, who is still in progress, and who has yet to begin.
• This enables proactive follow-ups to ensure timely completion.

The Challenge to the Excel Expert Community

This model represents an enterprise-level Excel solution using only built-in Excel capabilities. No proprietary add-ins or external software are required. The challenge to Excel experts is as follows:

1. Can you replicate or improve this solution using the techniques you advocate?
2. How would you apply modern Excel features such as Power Query, dynamic arrays, Lambda functions, Excel tables, XLOOKUP, Python for Excel, or Copilot to enhance this process?
3. Can you demonstrate an alternative approach using the latest Excel innovations while maintaining efficiency, real-time performance, and usability?

Why This Matters

This challenge serves as a benchmark for assessing the real-world applicability of advanced Excel skills. Many Excel trainers, influencers, and industry professionals promote specific tools and techniques. The question is: Do these techniques hold up in an enterprise scenario?

Additionally, the FP&A tools industry claims their software surpasses Excel for financial management. This challenge offers an objective way to compare solutions: can Excel match or outperform these tools?

Call to Action

We invite Excel professionals, enthusiasts, and trainers to participate in this challenge. Share your approach, methodology, and insights. If you’ve learned valuable techniques from Excel experts, acknowledge them and demonstrate how their teachings apply.

This initiative is an opportunity to validate Excel skills, recognize effective training, and determine what truly works in enterprise financial management.

Let the challenge begin. Good luck!

Podcast by Hiran de Silva. Narrated by Bill.