What would it take for you to give up Excel?
Interested to know under what circumstances people would consider shifting from Excel to something else. Google Sheets currently doesn't have the same level of features as Excel, but there are obvious advantages in terms of things like collaboration.
Some aspects of Excel are seriously frustrating (can't dual screen the same model, no version control, trace/precedents dependents is essential but pretty terrible). Some of these things can be solved by plugins but not all of them. So what would it take for you to move? Either onto Google Sheets or even completely different software.
Parity with Excel in terms of what features? And then what extra things would make your like way easier?
I always thought Google Finance getting (pretty much) canned was a real shame for their competitiveness in the financial modeling space. Being able to pull up-to-date financials for free would be a massive plus imo if they'd extended to things like fundamentals.
Google Sheets is good for anyone not doing any serious calculation.
To move away from Excel, Id need BBG/FactSet/CapIQ compatibility, better array calculations, a more efficient language than VBA (really shouldnt be hard), and the same file type compatibility (eg xls/xlsx/csv/xml...). Oh and the stupid E -> scientific notation needs to go. Literally the dumbest thing on Excel, whoever thought that was a good idea should be fired.
Couldn't agree more about a more efficient VBA. For most VBA functions I do now I can either figure it out with some time or a quick Google search will give me some lines of code, but there should definitely be an easier way to do it.
Also completely agree on the VBA point. What language would be your preference? Python? And with a better programming language, couldn't you get rid of array calculations all together?
Really don't understand why they haven't included something to let you turn off E+ notation as a default rather than making you format everything separately.
Python mostly because it was what I was taught, and its open source. However, my firm makes using open source software incredibly annoying and there seems to be no solution to this bureaucracy. BQuant for bloomberg looks promising, havent really tested it out for work yet though.
I also like MATLAB a lot for its libraries, charting and array calculations. But the incremental benefit between a fully functioning Python platform and MATLAB is definitely not worth the price.
Definite SB - thanks a lot. Every time I've tried to dual screen, the focus stays the same on both windows as you scroll. Don't know how I ever missed this.
Given the absolute uselessness of real-time collaboration for what deal professionals do, I don't think there is anything that could make that a reality. One person builds a model, it is then reviewed in isolation by someone more senior, then it is distributed. I see absolutely no value in having real-time collaboration except for some weak analyst that isn't able to develop the requisite skill set.
I take the point that real-time collaboration isn't necessary (or even desirable) in lots of situations. But the option to do so is surely a benefit? Pretty sure a number of ECM departments pay ridiculous amounts ($5k - 10k per deal) for Dealogic's Bookbuilder for IPOs which is basically just a single sheet spreadsheet with collaboration capabilities and security. I'm assuming there are other similar use cases.
Also, though not directly a "collaboration" feature, it would be useful to be able to pull a sell-side model internally without having to email someone. That way I don't have to ask them to send me a bunch of models I don't want as well as the one I do. Would also be great if I then got pinged if the model updated with new results.
I’n response to your sentimental longing for Google Finance, create an account on atom.finance, then navigate to their Sandbox product (financial modeling with consensus projections pre-populated). This is undoubtedly the best free ‘terminal’ I’ve ever used.
An extra 6-8 hours in the day and compensation for the time I waste because the non-Excel platform is worse.
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