Frankly Speaking: No. 1 rule for users: Keep it simple

Description

A problem that arose in the Lehman-Barclays merger shows why users need to keep it simple [a possibly billions of dollars spreadsheet to PDF tranformation error!]

In November, a federal judge in New York will decide whether to fix a user's spreadsheet error. Does that sound like overkill? Well, the judge is in charge of the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history, and the spreadsheet lists hundreds of assets involved in that bankruptcy.

A Lehman exec sent a spreadsheet containing assets Barclay wanted to Barclay's law firm barely four hours before the deadline. But it had to be converted from Excel to a PDF to be submitted to the court. An associate lawyer glanced at the spreadsheet, saw nothing but Y's in the "Do we want it?" column, and sent it to a law clerk with instructions to cut out certain columns and turn it into a PDF.The clerk cut out the columns, then saw that some of the rows were formatted oddly. He reformatted the spreadsheet into nice, even rows and converted the result to a PDF, then sent it back to the associate, who posted the file without even looking at it.

No one noticed that the new version was 179 rows longer than the original. In fact, 20% of the items in the spreadsheet -- the ones with an "N" -- had been hidden automatically using an Excel function. When the clerk cut out the "Do we want it?" column, they reappeared. Oops.

The Lehman-Barclays deal closed on Sept. 22. The mistake wasn't discovered until Oct. 1, nine days later. Now Barclays is hoping the court will let it off the hook for millions of dollars in assets it never intended to buy.

 

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