Financial modelling from Excel to Access

Hi there,

I'm working for a manufacturing company in FMCG industry. One of my jobs is to build and maintain an activity based financial model in Excel which simulates the whole group's financial performance based on current/projected sales & manufacturing conditions. The model can enable user to drill down to SKU level to analyse the profitability. Because I don't have access to our ERP system's database, I have to replicate all master data I need in various tables in the model workbook. That means the model has its build-in database in Excel worksheets. The model is 100% dynamic which means the workbook is full of formulae and any change in one area will ripple through the whole modle and impact the bottom line. The model works fine so far to simulate the performance down to contribution level (meaning calculation of profit after taking account of promotion, warehousing & distribution costs). Guess what my model looks like now - has more than 1 million formulae and more than 100MB in size and take more than 30 minutes to do a full-scale recalculation (if successful at all)! But my company wants me progress to EBIT level, which means I need take in more & more data and build more formula and store more data. I know I've reached the critical point beyond which will be out of Excel's capacity. I remember I saw an article on Internet about the superiosity of Access to Excel regarding financial modelling. But I just could find it now by all means.

My questions: could anyone show me how to do modelling in Access? I mean those dynamic things in Access as in Excel. Can I have a sample Access DB for financial modelling? Or is there any other software that can handle industrial level modelling like mine?

Any comment is welcome.

Cheers

Huyeote

Hi Huyeote,

A Database can handle efficiently a lot more rows than Excel, but it is
difficult to do calculations on more than one row at a time, and cumbersome
to do some time-phased calculations.
I would suggest you consider an approach of storing the data in a database
like access, and doing the calculations in Excel based on subsets of the
data retrieved from/stored back the database.
Alternatively you could reprogram the calculations in visual basic working
on tables in the database,

Charles
______________________
Decision Models
FastExcel 2.1 now available
www.DecisionModels.com

"Huyeote" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
>
> Hi there,
>
> I'm working for a manufacturing company in FMCG industry. One of my
> jobs is to build and maintain an activity based financial model in
> Excel which simulates the whole group's financial performance based on
> current/projected sales & manufacturing conditions. The model can
> enable user to drill down to SKU level to analyse the profitability.
> Because I don't have access to our ERP system's database, I have to
> replicate all master data I need in various tables in the model
> workbook. That means the model has its build-in database in Excel
> worksheets. The model is 100% dynamic which means the workbook is full
> of formulae and any change in one area will ripple through the whole
> modle and impact the bottom line. The model works fine so far to
> simulate the performance down to contribution level (meaning
> calculation of profit after taking account of promotion, warehousing &
> distribution costs). Guess what my model looks like now - has more than
> 1 million formulae and more than 100MB in size and take more than 30
> minutes to do a full-scale recalculation (if successful at all)! But my
> company wants me progress to EBIT level, which means I need take in more
> & more data and build more formula and store more data. I know I've
> reached the critical point beyond which will be out of Excel's
> capacity. I remember I saw an article on Internet about the superiosity
> of Access to Excel regarding financial modelling. But I just could find
> it now by all means.
>
> My questions: could anyone show me how to do modelling in Access? I
> mean those dynamic things in Access as in Excel. Can I have a sample
> Access DB for financial modelling? Or is there any other software that
> can handle industrial level modelling like mine?
>
> Any comment is welcome.
>
> Cheers
>
> Huyeote
>
>
> --
> Huyeote
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Huyeote's Profile:
> http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=13894
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=473254
>

> My questions: could anyone show me how to do modelling in
> Access? I mean those dynamic things in Access as in Excel.

For starters, I would suggest that you post this inquiry
in an Access or database forum, not an Excel forum.

> Or is there any other software that
> can handle industrial level modelling like mine?

That would be my suggestion: get some software designed
to work with the database of your choice. Off-hand, I do
not have any specific recommendations.

It might be prudent and cost-effective for your company
to hire a consultant to help you research your options.

Eventually, the conversion of the large amount of data
that you describe might be a project in itself. A
consultant might help you estimate that cost, as well.