Give Me 15 Minutes
On a recent holiday weekend, a relative asked me to help interpret reports and create calculations with data from their work. Since I am in love with Excel, of course I agreed, holiday forgotten (at least until dessert).
What I found in the 15 minutes that I sat there was... basically a crime scene.
Specifically:
A person (not my relative) had picked a random number (out of the air) to use as the average unit price. This random number was 15% higher than it should have been, once we used the actual data to calculate the true average unit price. This random number was used in ALL of their projections.
A report that we pulled from their key revenue system was missing headers for the columns where the data lived. We couldn't use any of that data without a detailed reconciliation to the source system (no time, since there was ice cream on its way to the table!).
This revenue system was part of an ERP suite. But, from looking at another report, I saw that the org was using an entirely different general ledger system from the one that comes with the ERP. This different general ledger system was one that I KNOW does not talk to the ERP.
So, what I found in 15 minutes was:
Highly inaccurate revenue/cost projections.
Unusable data (and a poorly-implemented revenue system).
Systems that do not talk to each other (plus unnecessary payment for extra licenses), which can lead to... don't even get me started.
If I found this in 15 minutes, what more do you think we would find behind the curtain? All the ice cream in the world wouldn't be enough to numb that pain.
Fortunately, I have a high tolerance and an odd fascination for this kind of crime scene, just like the detectives in the murder podcasts I listen to. I believe it's called the "fascination of the horrible".
Schedule a call with me to uncover what’s actually holding your team back.
