Hot-housing, not warehousing

Packola is about getting the most out of each piece of data. We ruthlessly reduce the number of figures, so that each one works hard for its place in the system. Sometimes we call this One Core Truth.

Or we contrast it with the Data Warehouse approach. Where that is about bulk and comprehensiveness, Packola is about indivisible precision. Sweat the data. Hothouse it.

It's all about streamlining

Packola is all about streamlining the process. We identify the important outputs. Then we work back to the inputs that are required and automate them. In a perfect world, that's it: one streamlined reporting cycle.

We've never done one like that. In the real world there are inputs which can't be automated, discretionary options which need to be allowed. But we still only do what needs to be done, pruning away figures that used to interest someone but are now just a distraction. Like a Formula One car, the end result has a shape which is not 100% sleek, but is as streamlined as it possibly can be.

Corner Mark

Packola uses small coloured triangles in the corner of cells to draw attention to them. Like Excel, we use a red triangle top right when there's a comment against the cell.
We also use a green triangle top left when there's an Adjustment. This follows Excel's method for indicating a formula error. In Packola the error is to use an adjustment at all, because Adjustments are Evil.

Robustness

Experience shows that Excel is not robust. Each new reporting exercise needs some alterations to the spreadsheet structures. Perhaps the names of linked workbooksare changed. Perhaps formulae need to be dragged down to new cells, or whole new worksheets added. Making those changes is a manual task which can go wrong or be overlooked.

Packola is more robust because the structure needs no changes for a new exercise. Robustness is designed in.

One Core Truth

I asked my customer what his success criteria for Packola were. "One Core Truth" he said. Any number in the system existed once. Another number dependent on that used it directly.

Packola supports this by a philosophy of simplicity, by an attitude of reduction and by the Find function. If there are competing truths, then we find the multiple versions and then reduce them to One Core Truth.

Adjustments are Evil

I have seem formulae comprising adding half a dozen cells from different worksheets in different books. And in amongst all that, there's +1234567. Somewhere else, to make things balance, there's -1234567.
Adjustments like this are evil. There's no explanation, no linkage between values, no visibility. Packola allows them, but flags them up with a corner mark and lets you see a list of the adjustments made.
Instead we encourage the use of Amendments. This is a mindset - there's nothing special about the cells. The mindset is that if we expect this value to need changing, we'll give it a visible cell ready for the amendment. If it's empty, that's great, but life is rarely that simple.

Our Own Functions

We support a small number of simple functions designed to make your life easier.
=WSGBPA(B1,CAD) for instance does a GBP Average conversion from CAD. There are others which use the Period End rates, or for conversion into USD.
In =IF(WSYEAR()>2000,B1+C1,0) our function WSYEAR gets the Year of Account for a board's scope.
That's about it. There, that wasn't difficult.