Moving from Excel to MODLR’s connected planning platform doesn’t mean abandoning spreadsheets overnight.
The smarter approach is to identify the planning processes that have outgrown Excel, preserve the business logic that matters, and move data, models, workflows and reporting into a more connected and governed environment.
This practical guide explains how to move from Excel to MODLR step by step, what to migrate first, what can stay in Excel, and how to avoid simply rebuilding spreadsheet complexity in a new platform.
Executive summary
Moving from spreadsheet-led planning to a connected planning platform does not mean abandoning everything that finance has built in Excel.
The better approach is to understand which spreadsheet processes create the greatest workload, risk or constraint; identify the business logic that must be retained; and rebuild those processes within a more connected and governed planning environment.
Existing spreadsheets can provide an important blueprint for the transition process. They contain assumptions, calculations, drivers, reporting structures and years of accumulated business knowledge. Consider migration as an opportunity to simplify processes instead of replicating every worksheet, formula and workaround in a new system.
MODLR helps businesses move their core data, models, calculations, scenarios, workflows and reporting into a central planning environment. They can continue using Excel, if they wish to, for tasks where it remains useful.
This guide explains how finance teams can approach the move from Excel to MODLR practically, which processes to migrate first, what to document before starting and how Excel can continue to fit into the new planning environment.
What is in this guide:
- Executive Summary
- Why Move Planning Out of Excel?
- What Does Moving from Excel to Connected Planning Actually Mean?
- Should You Rebuild Your Existing Excel Models Exactly in MODLR?
- A Practical Approach to Moving from Excel to MODLR
- Should Finance Stop Using Excel After Moving to MODLR?
- What Should Stay in Excel?
- What Happens to Existing Excel Reports?
- Can Existing Excel Data Be Used During Migration?
- What Happens to Excel Formulas?
- Can MODLR Support Different Planning Processes Across the Business?
- How Long Should an Excel-to-MODLR Migration Take?
- Who Should Own the New Planning Model?
- What Are Common Mistakes When Moving Away from Excel?
- What Does a Successful Transition Look Like?
- From Spreadsheet-Led Planning to Connected Planning
- Frequently Asked Questions
Why move planning out of Excel?
Excel remains one of the most useful and commonly used tools available to finance. It may continue to be the best option for some analysis, calculations, schedules, and ad hoc modelling, as well as reporting tasks.
The problem is not Excel. The problem is what happens when firms turn Excel spreadsheets into the infrastructure that holds their entire planning process together.
Things get complicated when a growing finance team finds itself dealing with:
Multiple departmental budget files;
Different versions of forecasts;
Manually imported actuals;
Interconnected worksheets and workbooks;
Complex formulas that only one or two people understand;
Spreadsheet-based assumptions;
Separate scenario files;
Manual consolidation; email-based submissions and approvals; and
Reports that need to be rebuilt or reconciled each reporting cycle.
What started as a flexible solution can gradually become difficult to govern and time-consuming to maintain.
For many Excel users, the objective of moving to MODLR isn’t simply replacing spreadsheets. They want to move parts of their planning process that need greater scalability, integration, collaboration, governance and control into a connected planning system.
With the MODLR Excel integration, and the MODLR Excel Add-in, Excel can remain part of that environment where it continues to add value.
What does moving from Excel to connected planning actually mean?
The biggest change is architectural. In spreadsheet-led planning processes, much of your business’ planning intelligence sits inside individual files.
The workbooks may contain within them:
source data;
formulas;
business rules;
assumptions;
planning inputs;
scenarios;
reports; and
In some cases, even an informal approval process.
As planning gradually becomes increasingly complex, these responsibilities become distributed across an increasing number of files.
In a connected planning environment, the underlying data, assumptions, calculations and planning structures are maintained within shared and governed models. Finance no longer has to continually pass spreadsheet files between people and recalculate results.
Operational and financial data can be brought into the same environment. Business drivers can feed forecasts. Departments can submit plans through structured inputs. Scenarios can be managed without duplicating the entire model. Reports can draw on the same underlying data used for planning.
This is the fundamental difference between simply digitising a spreadsheet and actually transforming a planning process.
Should you rebuild existing Excel models exactly in MODLR?
Usually, no.
Existing spreadsheets are extremely valuable during migration, as they show how the organisation currently plans. But they should be treated only as a source of information, not an architectural specification written in stone.
Here’s why:
A workbook may have developed over many years.
New worksheets may have been added to solve individual problems.
Formulas may compensate for limitations elsewhere in the process.
Copies may have been created because there was no practical way to manage different scenarios.
Manual steps may exist simply because systems were never connected.
Some of this logic needs to be preserved.
Some of it does not.
That is why, before rebuilding a model, users must ask this:
If we were designing this planning process today, would we still build it this way?
That question can prevent you from carrying unnecessary spreadsheet complexity into their new planning environment.
A practical approach to moving from Excel to MODLR
A successful transition is easier when treated as a business-process project rather than simply a software implementation.
Here’s what transition entails:
Identifying which spreadsheet processes need to move
Documenting the existing planning process
Separating essential business logic from spreadsheet workarounds
Designing the MODLR model around the business
Connecting the relevant data sources
Moving planning inputs into controlled Workviews
Rebuilding calculations around business drivers
Replacing workbook copies with managed scenarios
Establishing permissions, responsibilities and workflow
Rebuilding reporting around the same model
Validating the new model against the existing spreadsheet
Moving ahead in phases
Let us look into what each step involves.
Step 1: Identify which spreadsheet processes need to move
Do not begin by making an inventory of every spreadsheet in finance. You don’t need to migrate all of them. Begin with the processes that are creating the greatest pain or risk continuously.
Look for spreadsheets that have:
Large amounts of manual work;
Frequent copying and pasting;
Multiple contributors;
Difficult consolidation;
Repeated data imports;
Complex formulas;
Numerous workbook links;
Multiple versions;
Regular errors;
Lengthy reconciliation;
Impacts on important management decisions;
Sensitive information;
Complicated approval processes;
Significant dependence on key persons
You need not move a departmental analytical workbook just one finance analyst uses. In contrast, a budgeting process involving 50 contributors, several business units and repeated manual consolidation makes a much stronger candidate for migrating to MODLR.
The objective is to solve the most important planning problems first, not to migrate the greatest number of spreadsheets.
Step 2: Document the existing planning process
Before rebuilding a new model, you must understand what the spreadsheet actually does.
To do so, you need to document its data sources, dimensions, planning structures and business logic. You also need to figure out planning drivers, inputs and contributors, outputs and reports.
Data sources – Where do the numbers come from?
Examples of data sources include:
ERP systems
Accounting software
CRM systems
Payroll systems
Operational databases
data warehouses
other spreadsheets
Manually entered information
Dimensions and planning structures – How does the organisation analyse and plan the business?
This might include:
Entities
Departments
Products
Customers
Locations
Employees
Projects
Channels
Accounts
Time
Scenarios
These structures can then be set up as dimensions in the connected model. This allows the same data to be planned and analysed across areas such as entities, departments, products, customers, time and scenarios.
Business logic – Identify what is important, including:
Formulas
Allocations
Assumptions
Calculations
Rates
Dependencies
Planning Rules
Consolidation logic
You should not assume that a complex formula needs to be recreated simply because it is there. Instead, work on understanding what business rule the formula is trying to represent.
Planning drivers – Identify what actually causes the numbers to move.
For example:
Revenue = units sold × average selling price
Payroll cost = employees × average remuneration
Freight cost = shipments × average cost per shipment
Capturing the underlying drivers often enables finance to build a more useful planning model instead of simply reproducing historic spreadsheet formulas.
Inputs and contributors – Questions to ask:
Who provides information?
Which departments or individuals enter assumptions?
What information can they change?
What information should they only view?
Approvals and workflow – How does the plan currently move through the organisation?
For instance, who prepares it, reviews it, changes it, approves it, and signs it off? In many firms with spreadsheet planning processes, team members often rely on email and informal follow-up to manage these stages.
Mapping the existing workflow also makes it easier to design a more structured process.
Outputs and reports - Finally, establish what the process needs to produce or deliver.
These might include, but are not confined to:
Budget reports
Forecast reports
Management accounts
Variance analysis
Dashboards
Board packs
Operational reports
Excel-based schedules.
The point of migration from Excel to MODLR is to support the complete planning and decision-making process; not simply to rebuild a calculation engine.
Step 3: Separate essential business logic from spreadsheet workarounds
This is one of the most valuable parts of the migration to MODLR.
A spreadsheet may contain two different things:
Business logic that genuinely matters, and
workarounds created because the process lives in spreadsheets.
The first must normally be preserved. The second may be unnecessary.
An Example: Essential business logic or workarounds?
Think of a business with 15 departmental budget templates. Finance sends them to managers and receives completed versions by email. They manually combine the 15 departmental budgets into a master budget.
In this example, the departmental structure and assumptions are important. The 15 separate files are not.
An Example: In scenario planning
Similarly, an organisation may maintain separate Base Case, Upside and Downside workbooks for scenario planning.
The scenarios matter, but duplicating the model three times doesn’t.
Questions to ask before migration:
What business rule does this formula represent?
Why does this worksheet exist?
Why is this calculation performed manually?
Why do we have multiple copies?
Why is Finance reconciling this information?
Could this process be simpler in a connected model?
This may be tedious, but it is essential because that is how a transition from Excel becomes a genuine process improvement, rather than a technology replacement exercise.
Step 4: Design the MODLR model around the business
Once the underlying planning process is understood, it can be structured within MODLR.
Instead of relying on worksheet layouts, information can be organised using dimensions and data cubes.
Depending on the business, dimensions might include:
Time × Account × Department × Product × Entity × Scenario
or:
Time × Customer × Route × Service × Region × Scenario
What is an appropriate structure depends on how the company actually plans and manages performance.
With a multi-dimensional model, finance doesn’t need to create a new worksheet simply because management wants to analyse the plan from another perspective.
The same underlying model can support multiple views of the business. This can be especially valuable as businesses grow and their reporting requirements become more complex and detailed.
Step 5: Connect the relevant data sources
Spreadsheet-based FP&A often begins with data preparation. Finance downloads information from one system, exports information from another, cleans it, restructures it and moves it into the planning workbook.
Then the process repeats during the next reporting or forecasting cycle.
When moving to MODLR, you will identify which recurring data flows can be connected or automated.
The aim is to reduce the manual movement of data between source systems and the planning model.
This means bringing together:
financial actuals;
sales data;
payroll information;
operational volumes;
customer information;
project data;
inventory;
production information; and
other planning drivers.
The result should be a planning model built on more timely and consistent information rather than another environment that finance still has to populate manually.
Step 6: Move planning inputs into controlled Workviews
Not every number can or should be automated. Budgeting and forecasting still require human judgement.
This is why managers need to provide:
sales forecasts;
recruitment plans;
project assumptions;
pricing changes;
departmental expenses;
operational volumes; and
commentary.
Planning inputs can be collected through controlled MODLR Workviews instead of distributing separate spreadsheets.
Not everyone can access the model or enter planning inputs. The underlying model determines what users can see and where they can provide information.
This enables finance to maintain a common planning structure while allowing different contributors to provide the information for which they are responsible.
The detailed design of planning screens, workflows and use cases belongs in the separate How to Set Up Planning and Workflows in MODLR guide.
Step 7: Rebuild calculations around business drivers
Migration also offers an opportunity to move from cell-based calculations towards driver-based planning.
Suppose a retailer forecasts revenue by taking last year's sales and adding 5%.
That may be easy to calculate in Excel. But management may get more useful information by modelling:
Stores × customer traffic × conversion rate × average transaction value
Now the forecast can answer more meaningful questions such as:
What happens if traffic declines?
What if prices increase?
What if two stores open later than expected?
What happens if conversion improves?
The calculation is no longer simply reproducing a number. It is representing how the business works. That makes the model more useful for forecasting and scenario planning as well as budgeting.
Step 8: Replace workbook copies with managed scenarios
Scenario planning frequently leads to spreadsheet proliferation.
A base forecast is copied to create an upside scenario. Another copy becomes the downside. Then each needs to be maintained separately as assumptions change.
In MODLR, scenarios can form part of the underlying planning model. Finance can manage alternative assumptions while retaining the same planning structure. This allows decision-makers to compare outcomes without rebuilding or reconciling multiple versions of the model.
As a result, scenario planning becomes a normal part of FP&A rather than an occasional exercise that requires yet another set of spreadsheets.
Step 9: Establish permissions, responsibilities and workflow
Spreadsheet planning often depends heavily on process discipline.
Finance must make sure the correct person receives the correct workbook.
Managers must avoid changing formulas.
Completed files need to be returned.
Finance needs to know which submission is final.
Approvals may be recorded in emails.
As planning becomes more collaborative, these informal controls become increasingly difficult to manage.
A connected planning process can instead define:
who can access information;
which areas users can update;
planning responsibilities;
submission processes;
review stages; and
approvals.
This does not eliminate the need for good governance. It gives finance a stronger framework within which governance can operate.
See: MODLR User Management and Security: Everything You Need to Know
Step 10: Rebuild reporting around the same model
One of the limitations of spreadsheet-led planning is that reporting can become detached from the planning model.
Numbers are exported. Reports are rebuilt. Tables are copied. Presentations are updated. And Finance has to check that the reporting pack still agrees with the underlying forecast.
Where possible, reports should instead draw on the same governed models used for budgeting and forecasting.
Within MODLR, Workviews and Cards can provide different planning, reporting and analytical views of the underlying model.
With the Excel Add-in, Excel can also continue to provide a reporting interface where users prefer it.
The important point is that reporting does not need to create another version of the organisation's data.
When combined with MODLR’s Management Reporting solution, your decisions and their implementation will be more effective. This is the result of your ability to gain a deep understanding of the dynamics between financial drivers and connected operational drivers.
Step 11: Validate the new model against the existing spreadsheet
Do not discard the spreadsheet model on day one because it can provide an extremely useful control during migration.
Run the old and new models against comparable data.
Compare:
totals;
calculations;
allocations;
forecasts;
consolidated results;
reports; and
key management metrics.
Where results differ, determine why.
Does the MODLR model contain an error that needs correcting?
Are there existing spreadsheet errors?
Sometimes the two models differ because the new approach intentionally improves the calculation methodology.
Validation gives finance confidence that important business logic has been transferred correctly before the old process is retired.
Step 12: Move in phases
Migration does not have to happen everywhere at once.
A practical sequence might be:
Phase 1 – Annual budgeting: Move departmental submissions, consolidation and budget reporting.
Phase 2 – Forecasting: With cashflow forecasts and rolling forecasts, you can connect actuals and introduce rolling or driver-based forecasting.
Phase 3 – Scenario planning: Add alternative assumptions and management scenarios.
Phase 4 – Management reporting: Connect planning and actual information to management reports and variance analysis.
Phase 5 – Operational planning: Extend the model into sales, workforce, projects, production, inventory or other operational areas.
The right sequence will depend on your business and its priorities.
What matters is that each phase solves a meaningful business problem and builds on a common planning foundation.
Should finance stop using Excel after moving to MODLR?
No. Moving away from spreadsheet-led planning does not require an organisation to stop using Excel.
That distinction matters.
Excel can continue to be useful for:
ad hoc analysis;
specialist calculations;
familiar reports;
management packs;
board schedules; and
users who simply work most efficiently in Excel.
MODLR for Excel integration and the Excel Add-in—which converts Excel into a frontend for connected planning—allows users to connect Excel to MODLR models for reporting and write-back.
This enables finance to retain familiar Excel layouts and working practices where they continue to add value, while the underlying data and planning models remain centrally managed.
In other words:
Excel can remain an interface without remaining the planning architecture.
That can make migration considerably easier in cases where finance teams and managers are accustomed to working in spreadsheets.
What should stay in Excel?
Do not ask: ‘Can we move this spreadsheet?’
Instead, what you need to ask is: ‘Is there a business reason to move it?’
A spreadsheet may reasonably remain in Excel when:
it has a small number of users;
it performs a simple task;
the process is temporary;
it requires little governance;
it is primarily for individual analysis;
it does not rely on large volumes of connected data; and
maintaining it creates little risk or workload.
Conversely, migration becomes more attractive when a process involves:
many contributors;
complex calculations;
frequent data updates;
multiple business units;
important management decisions;
version-control problems;
workflow and approvals;
sensitive data;
recurring consolidation; or
extensive manual work.
The objective is not spreadsheet elimination. It is reducing unnecessary spreadsheet dependency.
What happens to existing Excel reports?
They do not necessarily need to disappear.
Many finance teams have spent years developing management reports and board packs that users understand and value.
There may be little reason to redesign them purely because the underlying planning system changes.
MODLR's Excel integration allows Excel reports to work with data from MODLR models.
This means organisations can potentially retain familiar reporting formats while improving the environment behind them.
This is particularly useful when the biggest problem is not the report itself but the manual work required to populate, reconcile and maintain it.
Can existing Excel data be used during migration?
Yes.
Existing spreadsheets can be useful sources of:
historical data;
budgets;
forecasts;
assumptions;
planning drivers;
mappings;
reporting structures; and
business logic.
But importing data and recreating a planning model are different tasks.
Before moving historic spreadsheet structures wholesale into MODLR, decide what information genuinely needs to form part of the new model.
Migration is an opportunity to clean up obsolete assumptions, redundant dimensions, old mappings and unnecessary complexity.
What Happens to Excel Formulas?
The objective should be to understand the business logic behind the formula rather than mechanically recreate every cell calculation.
Some spreadsheet formulas represent simple calculations that can be implemented within the model.
Others may represent:
allocations;
forecasting logic;
business rules;
lookups;
dimensional relationships; or
data transformations.
Once the underlying rule is understood, it can be implemented in a way suited to the connected model.
This also helps reduce one of the weaknesses of large spreadsheet models: important logic being scattered across thousands of individual cells.
Can MODLR support different planning processes across the business?
Yes. A connected planning environment does not mean every part of the business has to plan in exactly the same way.
Sales may forecast customers and volumes.
HR may plan headcount.
Operations may forecast production or capacity.
Finance may plan expenses, cash flow and financial statements.
The purpose of connected planning is not to force all these functions into one template.
It is to allow their different planning processes to connect where their decisions affect one another.
For example:
Headcount plan → payroll forecast
Sales volume forecast → revenue and working capital
Production plan → materials and labour costs
Project plan → capital expenditure and cash flow
The detailed configuration of these processes and workflows is covered separately in How to Set Up Planning and Workflows in MODLR.
How long would an Excel-to-MODLR migration take?
There is no useful universal answer because it depends on your organisation and what you need, by way of MODLR solutions in the initial phase.
Migration effort typically depends on factors such as:
The number and complexity of models involved
Data quality – the messier it is, the longer it would take;
Number of source systems you want to begin with
Complexity of business logic
Your reporting requirements
Number of contributors into your planning process
Workflow requirements
Quality of existing documentation
How much you choose to redesign rather than replicate
A focused planning process with well-understood logic will naturally be simpler to migrate than an enterprise-wide model involving multiple businesses, systems and planning processes.
For that reason, it is wise to evaluate implementation based on the scope of the actual planning problem rather than on generic implementation timelines.
Who should own the new planning model?
Finance should be able to play a substantial role in owning and evolving its planning models.
Business conditions change. Departments are reorganised. New products and services are launched. Planning assumptions keep changing. Management will request new scenarios. Stress testing may call for more extensive scenarios.
If you end up needing an external consultant or specialist developer for every significant model change, you will end up exchanging spreadsheet dependency for a different form of dependency.
That is not to say technical expertise is not needed. It may still be useful for complex integrations or specialised development. With MODLR, you will find technical support may be valuable when setting up more complex integrations, automation or specialised modelling requirements.
But finance should seriously consider how easily its own team can understand, maintain and adapt the core planning environment after implementation of a new FP&A platform. MODLR is designed to support this kind of finance ownership, allowing teams to manage and evolve planning models without relying on specialist developers for every change.
This is an important question when evaluating any FP&A platform.
Read: How to Choose FP&A Software: A Practical Evaluation Guide for CFOs
What are common mistakes when moving away from Excel?
Trying to migrate everything. Not every spreadsheet is a problem as you move from Excel to connected planning. Prioritise processes where migration will create meaningful value.
Rebuilding every workbook exactly. You need to preserve business logic, not unnecessary spreadsheet architecture. A multi-dimensional planning model does not need to replicate the rows, tabs and formulas of the original workbook.
Ignoring data quality. A new planning platform will not fix unreliable source data automatically. Try to understand data integration and source-data issues before building the model around them.
Automating a bad process. If a planning process is unnecessarily complicated, automating it simply makes the unnecessary complexity run faster.
Not streamlining processes. Try to simplify and streamline processes where possible. Before migrating existing processes, look for opportunities to remove unnecessary or obsolete steps, calculations or workarounds rather than simply rebuilding them in the new system.
Treating migration purely as an IT project. Budgeting and forecasting are business processes, so finance and operational users should be actively involved in designing how the new model and planning workflows will work. This is central to the idea of connected planning.
Attempting to eliminate Excel. Users may resist migration unnecessarily if they believe every familiar Excel process will disappear. Keep Excel where it continues to serve a useful purpose. MODLR supports this with a Microsoft Excel integration and the Excel Add-in.
Focusing only on the initial model. Remember that the business will change. The planning environment you create must be capable of changing with it. Try to design for maintainability as well as implementation.
Check out How to Choose FP&A Software: A Practical Evaluation Guide for CFOs which addresses this issue in detail.
What does a successful transition look like?
Success is not measured by the number of spreadsheets deleted. It is measured by the improvement achieved in your planning process.
A successful transition should help finance in numerous, meaningful ways. These may include:
Spending less time collecting and reconciling data;
Reducing manual consolidation;
Working with more consistent assumptions;
Forecasting more frequently;
Being able to model scenarios more easily;
Connecting operational plans with financial outcomes;
Improving visibility across the organisation;
Strengthening governance
Reducing key-person dependency
Producing reports more efficiently
Spending more time analysing the business
Excel may still be visible throughout the finance function.
But it is no longer responsible for holding the planning process together.
Key takeaway from spreadsheet-led planning to connected planning
There is a tendency to treat moving from Excel as a technology decision.
In reality, it is a planning decision.
The most important questions, therefore, are not “How many spreadsheets can we replace?”or “Can we recreate this workbook in MODLR?”
They are:
How should this planning process work?
Which data, assumptions and business drivers should be connected?
Who needs to contribute?
What does management need to understand?
Where do we need greater control?
And how can finance maintain and adapt the model as the business changes?
Existing spreadsheets provide a valuable starting point because they contain much of the organisation's accumulated planning knowledge.
But they do not need to dictate the future architecture.
MODLR allows organisations to move data, business logic, planning models, scenarios, reporting and workflows into a connected environment while retaining Excel where it continues to make sense.
That is the real objective of the transition; not replacing Excel for the sake of replacing Excel, but creating a planning environment that can grow with the business.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need to stop using Excel to implement MODLR?
No. Excel can continue to be used for reporting, analysis and other tasks where it remains useful. MODLR for Excel connects Excel to MODLR models for reporting and write-back, allowing the underlying planning data and logic to remain centrally managed.
Can we use our existing Excel models when moving to MODLR?
Yes. Existing models can provide valuable information about calculations, assumptions, dimensions, drivers, reports and planning processes. However, migration is also an opportunity to simplify the model rather than automatically recreating every spreadsheet structure.
Which Excel spreadsheets should we migrate first?
Prioritise processes involving significant manual work, multiple contributors, difficult consolidation, frequent errors, recurring data imports, version-control problems, sensitive information or important management decisions.
Should every finance spreadsheet be moved into MODLR?
No. Small, temporary or individual analytical spreadsheets may continue to work perfectly well in Excel. Migration should focus on processes that benefit from greater integration, scalability, collaboration or governance.
Can MODLR replace Excel budgeting templates?
Yes. Planning inputs can be collected through MODLR Workviews rather than distributing separate spreadsheet templates. Finance can maintain the common underlying model while users work with the areas relevant to their responsibilities.
Can we continue using existing Excel reports?
Potentially, yes. MODLR for Excel allows Excel to connect to MODLR models, so organisations can retain familiar Excel reporting formats while working with centrally managed planning data.
What happens to our Excel formulas?
Important formulas should first be understood as business rules. The relevant logic can then be rebuilt within the MODLR model rather than mechanically reproducing individual cell formulas.
Can MODLR support budgeting, forecasting and scenario planning?
Yes. MODLR supports budgeting, forecasting, driver-based planning and scenario modelling within connected models, allowing these processes to use common underlying data and planning structures.
Can Finance maintain MODLR models itself?
Finance ownership should be an important objective of implementation. How much specialist assistance is required will depend on the complexity of the models, integrations and processes being built, but core planning models should not become unnecessarily dependent on external technical resources.
Should we move to MODLR all at once?
Not necessarily. Many organisations can benefit from migrating in phases, starting with high-value processes such as budgeting or forecasting and expanding the connected model into reporting and operational planning over time.
What should we document before starting an Excel-to-MODLR migration?
Document data sources, dimensions, formulas, assumptions, planning drivers, contributors, reports, workflows, approvals and dependencies. This helps distinguish important business logic from spreadsheet structures that do not need to be recreated.
What is the difference between replacing Excel and reducing spreadsheet dependency?
Replacing Excel implies eliminating the tool. Reducing spreadsheet dependency means moving the processes that require centralised data, modelling, governance, workflow and collaboration into a planning platform while allowing Excel to remain where it is still effective.
