Читать книгу See-Through Modelling - Dominic Robertson - Страница 51

Modelling components are necessary to give the model further important functionality beyond core business modelling. These components may or may not also provide a name for the sheet on which they reside.

‘Inputs’ is the abbreviated form for ‘forecast inputs’ since the historic data is called actuals. These forecast inputs cover all other component titles and are all similar in that they are hard-coded numbers. Inputs can be formatted in a variety of ways, such as %, £k in 0,000, decimals in 0.000 format, and dates in dd-mmm-yy format.

The time component includes all modelling flags that turn calculations on and off throughout the model. The flags are in turn driven mostly by dates from the inputs component.

This component provides the manager and the modeller with a single set of navigational links to all parts of the model as well as any documentation on VBA forms.

The control panel component is a temporary area where results and inputs can be collected in order to drive the model. Once the analysis has been performed the inputs can be re-instated in their original location and the links to the results deleted.

This component has an identical structure to the financial statements except the values are hard-coded, hence the name reference.

This component has an identical structure to the financial statements except the values are the difference between the live financial statements and the hard-coded reference financial statements as described in the previous component.

The track component contains hard-coded sets of results derived from changing actuals and changing inputs. Each tracked result set is date and file stamped. This component is the core audit trail in the model.

The check component contains all error checks from throughout the model and summarises these into one single error check.

Each sheet in the model will have a header containing dates, period type labels, sheet name and check & track header (a collection of high-level important information coloured flags). The check & track header is available throughout the model to provide summary information on checks, alerts, and track and input changes.

The template component is a sheet that the modeller can use as a template to create new sheets in the model.