I’ve previously warned of the dangers of spreadsheets and formulas and assumptions and how small errors can make a big difference.
There have been some high profile and expensive mistakes using spreadsheets. JP Morgan Chase had in one case accidentally added two cells in a spreadsheet instead of averaging them and this caused the ‘value at risk’ to be underestimated and resulted in $6bn in subsequent losses!
The most recent headline was the government tracking of COVID cases where there was a maximum number allowed in the spreadsheet which was exceeded and thousands of cases were then missed off the daily stats.
Even the biggest concerns in the world get it wrong so all the more reason to build in checks and error tracing from day 1 to ensure you are not building up problems for the future.