The Excel consolidation that ends in a six-month debate

Every month, in a CAC 40 group, the finance managers in each country report their cash position. By Excel, each with their own file, each in their own currency. Six months later, at the steering meeting, nobody agrees on the figures.

How it gets to that point

The month starts normally. The files come in, one per country. They get consolidated.

On day 3, four managers send back a "version 2". That's normal: cash moves.

Of the four, two get merged. The other two fall through the cracks.

At the time, nothing flags it. The month ends, then the next one. The gaps lie dormant in the files.

Six months later, the steering meeting begins. The director has one set of figures. The managers have another. They don't agree. And the worst part is that everyone is right. About their own version.

It wasn't the teams

The first reflex is to look for who made the mistake. Wrong track.

The teams did their job. They sent their figures, then their corrections. The problem wasn't them. It was the tool.

Excel is excellent at calculating. It isn't made to receive figures from several countries every month and keep a single truth. It lacks three things.

• A single source. Every file sent is a copy. As many countries, as many copies. Every correction adds one more.
• A lock. Nothing stops a figure from moving after it's sent. Or one file from replacing another.
• An audit trail. When a figure changes, nobody can say who changed it, what changed, or when.

Without these three things, the consolidation rests on someone's memory. And memory doesn't last six months.

What we built instead

A cash management application, inside the group's Microsoft 365. It's built with Power Apps, the Microsoft 365 tool for creating business applications. The finance managers no longer send a file. They fill in a form.

• A single entry form. Every country enters its figures in the same place, the same way.
• Automatic currency conversion. Nobody redoes it by hand in their corner anymore.
• A "Submit" button that locks the entry. Once submitted, the figure no longer moves.
• No change without the director. To correct a figure, you need an explicit unlock by the director. A correction is still possible. But it can no longer slip in quietly: it goes through the director.
• Every entry versioned. Who entered what, and when. The history keeps itself.
• A campaign that opens and closes for everyone. The launch sends a notification to everyone at the same time. The closing is simultaneous too.

The whole thing runs on the Microsoft 365 license the group was already paying for. No consolidation software purchased.

Why the lock matters more than the form

You might think the value is in the form. It's mostly in the lock and the history.

The form organizes the figures. The lock freezes them. The history explains them.

When a figure has changed, there's no more debate. You look at who changed it, and when. The answer is in the tool, not in someone's memory.

That's where the "version 2" changes nature. Before, it was one more file that could get lost. Now, it's an unlocked change, dated, tied to its author. It can no longer fall through the cracks.

The result: a single truth. The question "which version?" no longer exists. A steering meeting no longer has to choose between two files. It can focus on the cash itself.

What this means for you

If your consolidation relies on files sent every month, ask yourself three questions.

• How many "version 2" files did you receive last month? Do you know where all of them are?
• If a figure changed after it was sent, can you say who changed it, and when?
• In meetings, how much time do you spend agreeing on the version before talking about the figures?

If even one of these answers bothers you, the problem probably isn't your teams. It's the tool.

The good news: the solution doesn't necessarily require more software. In this group, everything was built on the Microsoft 365 license already paid for. That's the subject of Zero software purchased. And the same logic applies to imports that need to say they ran: see the green dot.

The full story of the project is in the case study One single truth for treasury. The general approach is described on the page An application instead of the Excel file.

A single entry point, a lock, a history. With these three pieces, the "version 2" can no longer get lost.