Daniel Freeman reveals the 10 golden rules for licking your spreadsheets into shape.

Spreadsheets are used by accountants and others to prepare business-critical analysis and valuations, often driving transactions worth millions of pounds. Yet although such spreadsheet-based financial models have now been around for many years, a lot of spreadsheets could be described as being ‘unfit for purpose’ with high error rates. Below are some simple, practical techniques to help minimise the risk of introducing or failing to detect errors in financial models.