Most people learn to write decent essays, articles, papers or proposals over the course of their school or university education.

However, our experience of reviewing financial models shows that the simple presentational (short, simple sentence and clear paragraphs) and structural lessons (introduction, main body, conclusion and executive summary) that people apply when a creating a text based argument are rarely applied when formulating a number based argument such as a financial model.

This strikes us as very bizarre; after all the only difference is that one is an argument with words and the other an argument with numbers. At IndexMatch we show how the same rules that apply to essay writing can be used in an excel model to add clarity and make the argument easier to write, simpler to understand and easier to improve.

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Excel Modelling … What’s That?

Business modeling is a structured approach to decision analysis in order to understand the drivers (inputs) and outcomes (outputs). Typically it is done using Excel as this is a ubiquitous product.

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Successful organizations recognize financial modellers for what they are. They are analytic and commercially minded staff that know the ins and outs of a business decision better than anyone else. They’ve read every document, they’ve understood them so well they can model it, and they know how all the aspects of a deal relate to offer value.

Increasingly modellers are recognized as being among the most commercially minded and judicious resources an organization may have. Consequently they are coming out of the back office and taking a central role in day to day operation and business strategy.

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