One of Excel-Financial-Model’s main USPs is its flexibility and expandability. While many users use EFM exactly as supplied, others may wish to take advantage of their Excel expertise to tailor or extend it to meet specific requirements. This section gives some general advice on changing the model.
Note: If you have only minimal expertise with Excel or you need complex changes, we provide individual customization services to deliver the exact solution you need. Contact us using the form at the following URL:
http://excel-financial-model.com/contact/
for any enquiries.
Some precautions and principles to keep in mind when changing Excel-Financial-Model:
| • | When starting to change Excel-Financial-Model, always work from a copy of an error-free version. |
| • | Before editing any sheet, unprotect the worksheet (Password: “0000”) |
| • | Never delete or alter the supplied range or worksheet names or interfere with the macros supplied with Excel-Financial-Model. |
| • | Whenever a model has been changed or extended, always fully test it (by using positive and negative inputs, zero values or empty cells) to ensure that the changes work as intended and have no undesirable or unexpected consequences. |
| • | Having removed protection to make changes within a workbook, always restore protection as soon as practicable to prevent a user from accidentally or deliberately moving or deleting important data and formulas. |
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Adding new worksheets is a powerful way of expanding a model. It is both, user-friendly and relatively unsusceptible to errors. This approach can be used for additional output sheets as well as for more detailed input calculations, which are then plugged (= linked) into the existing sheets.
Extensions of simple formulas to plug into existing variables within Excel-Financial-Model include the following:
| • | Inserting new worksheets to incorporate very detailed projections (see examples below). These calculations can be summarized and plugged into the existing sheets. |
| • | Using Copy & Paste Special | Link to pull aggregated data from another Excel file into Excel-Financial-Model. |
| • | Copying & pasting values into existing assumption blocks or specifically designated blocks below assumption reports. |
The potential to expand Excel-Financial-Model in this way is effectively unlimited. For example, detailed calculations of sales funnels for individual products, customer acquisition, lists of materials, detailed cost analyses, capital expenditure schedules, and much more.
In addition very detailed or specialized reports (e.g. for presentation purposes) could be created with new diagrams, additional subtotals or with different levels of aggregation and details. Another example of applying this technique could be the construction of additional reports in foreign languages or currencies, which utilize the same data as the underlying model.
By inserting additional worksheets containing these new reports laid out exactly as desired and incorporating simple cell reference formulas to link back into cells within existing Excel-Financial-Model calculations or reports. This approach is simple, less error prone, and completely avoids the need to make any structural changes.
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When customizing and extending Excel-Financial-Model, it is important to ensure that no calculation errors arise; that all checksums are correct, and that no imbalances occur in the opening or projected balance sheets.
Because Excel-Financial-Model does not use floating values to balance its balance sheets, it is very sensitive to formula errors. Consequently, all structural changes to the model must be applied correctly. For example, if an additional cash flow related item is introduced into the model as an assumption row, changes may be needed in the income statement (P&L), cash flow and balance sheet output reports as well as in their corresponding output reports on the sheet (within the sources & uses overview). In addition, corresponding changes may also be required in all the quarterly and annual output reports (sheets to ).
For all changes and enhancements of the model we recommend the usage of the predefined custom cell styles to maintain consistency and transparency.
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Note
Only very experienced users, familiar with both EFM and Excel, should make these kind of extensions and structural changes. Make a backup version of your file before beginning with complex changes.
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