Comment by Karellen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Karellen | Hacker News Reader

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OK, I can see I've been talking somewhat at cross-purposes to some other people in the thread. When the G*P commenter said:

> The killer feature of Excel for financial modelling, over 'proper' software, databases etc is portability and auditability.

...comparing Excel to "'proper' software", extolling Excel's "portability and auditability", I read that as highlighting Excel spreadsheets' ability to be audited as software.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_audit

i.e. the ability to inspect the "code" of a spreadsheet, to ensure it does what the authors think it does/want it to do, and that it conforms to any informal/internal guidelines of the organisation using it - the sort that "'proper' software" is subject to.

That seemed to me to be the meaning intended by the original comment in the thread?

The kind of professionals doing audit's against Excel spreadsheets are not auditing the "code", they're auditing the methodology used to produce the results being audited.

I've also been through several code audits, and other than sharing the "word" audit they're not the same thing. Audit in this context is the ability to follow how some numbers were derived, and to check how the work was done. It's so that the 3rd party that hired them can confirm the numbers a 1st party are showing are what they say they are (and if not, are they close enough).

Accountants are confirming things comply with GAAP or IFRS, and pointing things out when they don't and asking for clarification. They'll be checking that liabilities were properly structured, and reflected in how profit was derived. They'll be reviewing deferred revenue schedules to make sure next year's pre-paid subscription revenue isn't recognized in Q4.

A financial auditor is going to be looking at the assumptions of the forecast, and working backwards to confirm the methodology. They'll confirm that Q4 2026 projections used the prior years average multiplied by quarterly constant. Or they'll find a results from an ARIMA/Prophet model with notes to "see X". Maybe they'll catch an Excel formula error or 2, but they'll unlikely mean much compared to what else could be wrong.

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