Quick question for IB / PE analysts —
Have you ever had a deal where EBITDA or net debt changed and you had to manually update it in the model, deck, and IC memo… and still worried something was inconsistent?
I’m prototyping a tool that tracks where assumptions flow and flags everything that breaks when a number changes.
Curious if this is a real pain or just a “welcome to finance” thing.
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yes please
can you please share a bit more about how you've experienced this? :thank you!
i've been screamed at for everything not tieing in the deck
Do people not link things to FactSet cells and then update all links so it automatically ties back?
I still print stuff to tie it but that's just good practice, thought this was common across banks
I used to do the same when I was in banking but there'd be times that we'd adjust assumptions based on our view of company so in those cases we'd need to tie across multiple places
Know some banks do it and some banks don’t, mainly related to version control issues
No way I'd trust FactSet figures
FactSet add in lets you link any Excel file, it's just the functionality from the add in. My firm links all numbers directly to our models, just hit refresh all links to update
There is software that already exists like this for accounting in particular for making large regulatory documents like 10-K filings where one change impacts many others.
One thing that I don't like about these is while they update things easier, you're putting a lot of trust in the original data being correct. When you are ticking and tieing important docs, I still find myself having to double check where a particular number is coming from and whether it is correct. Then, you have to also make sure all the data is properly linked to the correct places. Again, another possibility for error and also after you've done that, I'm not sure that you've saved any time at all.
what software is that? auditing and trusting the source are the important features for these tools, i don't think there are many that we can confidently rely on
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