This paper illustrates how the TimeScape SpreadSheet Inside™ can bring unstructured spreadsheet data and complex calculations within a centralised data management system, increasing transparency and consistency of data and calculations across trading, risk and compliance departments at financial institutions.

View complete SpreadSheet Inside™ white paper PDF. (This document requires the free Adobe/Acrobat Reader.) 13 pages, 290KB

Introduction

Spreadsheets – the Solution or the Problem?

The world’s most popular trading and risk management system is Microsoft Excel. The spreadsheet is a fantastic productivity tool for financial markets professionals who know what business functionality they need but do not have the software skills or resources to build this functionality in the timeframes demanded by the market. Certainly spreadsheets are the foundation upon which new financial products, higher profits and competitive advantage are built.

Spreadsheets are also an IT support, management and regulatory nightmare. Spreadsheets quickly move from being an ad-hoc trader tool to become a sophisticated, complex and business critical application that is extremely difficult for IT to support. For example, traders pricing exotic trades in spreadsheeets are a significant operational risk for IT and management to consider. Extensive and unstructured usage can translate into regulatory charges that eventually become penal on the operation of the business.

This whitepaper describes SpreadSheet Inside, a new technology which forms part of Xenomorph’s TimeScape data and decision management system. SpreadSheet Inside allows all of the productivity and innovation benefits of spreadsheet usage whilst addressing the key concerns of spreadsheet risk and control within financial markets. It allows business users to define spreadsheet logic in the way they are used to, but then allows IT to leverage and control spreadsheet calculations through centralisation and access permissioning.

White paper contents

• Spreadsheets – the Solution or the Problem?
• Practical Advantages and Issues
  • SpreadSheet Inside Design Goals
  • SpreadSheet Inside and Formula Grid Data
  • An Example – Calculating Historic Position Value in USD
  • More Examples – High Volume Tick Data Manipulation
• TimeScape QL+ and SpreadSheet Inside
  • Excel XLL Addin Support
• Summary
• Appendix 1 - Practical Examples of Spreadsheet Use and Misuse
• Appendix 2 – Representing and Viewing Data in TimeScape

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View complete SpreadSheet Inside™ white paper PDF. (This document requires the free Adobe/Acrobat Reader.) 13 pages, 290KB