An auditing protocol for spreadsheet models

  • Authors:
  • Stephen G. Powell;Kenneth R. Baker;Barry Lawson

  • Affiliations:
  • Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA;Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA;Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA

  • Venue:
  • Information and Management
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

Errors are prevalent in spreadsheets and can be extremely difficult to find. A number of audits of existing spreadsheets have been reported, but few details have been given about how the audits were performed. We developed and tested a new spreadsheet auditing protocol designed to find errors in operational spreadsheets. Our work showed which auditing procedures, used in what sequence and combination, were most effective across a wide range of spreadsheets. It also provided useful information on the size and complexity of operational spreadsheets, as well as the frequency with which certain types of errors occur.