When spreadsheets run your finance function: regulatory automation

Spreadsheets have long filled the gaps in finance systems. When a central system lacks a function and the business can't wait for it to be built, a workbook gets the job done.

Over time, though, those workarounds become permanent. A spreadsheet built to bridge a gap gets copied, shared and built into a monthly or regulatory process, until it's running the process instead of supporting it. At that point, it has become an end-user computing (EUC) tool, sitting outside the organisation's core technology and inside its control environment.

The spreadsheet error problem

Around 88% of business spreadsheets contain errors, according to research widely cited by spreadsheet specialists, including Raymond R. Panko of the University of Hawaii. Even carefully built spreadsheets have been found to have errors in at least 1% of formula cells. [1]

Many of these errors are small: a typo, a broken formula or a value pasted into the wrong cell. The trouble comes when the spreadsheet sits at the centre of a business-critical process. Spreadsheet errors were among the factors identified in the London Whale losses at JPMorgan Chase, and in 2008, hidden cells in a Barclays spreadsheet affected the analysis of an acquisition. [1]

In regulatory reporting, the stakes are higher still, because errors reach the regulator.

A global bank under pressure to meet regulatory commitments

A global bank's internal reviews of earlier mis-reporting had all pointed back to Excel as the root cause. Funding had been approved to automate reporting flows and data quality checks, and the bank had made commitments to its regulators on quarterly targets and expected automations. [2]

However, its existing automation approach was falling short. There was a real risk of having to reforecast those commitments and ask for more IT funding. Finance leadership had used Alteryx before and wanted a way to scale it quickly. [2]

NextWave placed three Alteryx engineers and a business analyst/project manager with the team for eight weeks. Training reached 12 finance groups and more than 100 users, supported by daily surgery sessions, while NextWave delivered the more complex automations directly. [2]

The results:

• Automation milestones were back on track within the first four weeks.
• Around 100 users could now automate their own activities.
• Best practice for change control and auditability was built in from the start.
• Cost savings were achieved and kept growing as adoption spread. [2]
• Which spreadsheets support regulatory or management reporting?
• Which processes depend on one or two people?
• Where would an error cause a material financial or regulatory issue?

A practical approach to EUC elimination

EUC elimination doesn't have to mean a large technology replacement programme. The practical route is to start with the spreadsheets that carry the most risk. Useful questions include:

From there, the useful business logic is separated from the manual activity, and the process is rebuilt as a governed Alteryx workflow. Training the finance team to maintain that workflow, as the bank did, avoids swapping one dependency for another, this time on IT.

Using AI to move faster

Scaling automation across many teams means converting a lot of spreadsheets, and working out what each one does takes time.

NextWave's EUC elimination accelerator, delivered on Alteryx by NextWave's AI experts, shortens that step. LLM agents read Excel models and extract the formulas and business rules, which are then translated automatically into Alteryx workflows. Each workflow is checked against the original spreadsheet's outputs before it's deployed to a governed platform. Finance experts still confirm the rules and sign off the results.

Building processes you can trust: the VURA approach

For a regulated business, automation only helps if the business, and its regulators, can trust the results. That depends on two things.

First, the people who understand the data and the business best need to help build and validate workflows, so the logic reflects how the business actually operates. Alteryx acts as the business logic layer that connects them to the process.

Second, the processes themselves should be visible, understandable, repeatable and auditable. Together, these principles form VURA:

Visible

• Data lineage: Data can be traced automatically from inputs to outputs, so it's always clear where a reported figure came from.
• Data control: Inputs and outputs are managed centrally, with need-to-know access.

Understandable

• Clear business logic: Finance experts can follow and validate the rules in a visual workflow, instead of reverse-engineering formulas.
• Supportability: A support analyst or central Centre of Excellence (CoE) can resolve issues without needing the original creator.

Repeatable

• Consistent results: The process runs the same way every time, whoever runs it.
• Fewer manual errors: Cut-and-paste mistakes and incorrect data movement are taken out of the process.
• Automated data quality checks: Issues are picked up automatically, before they reach a submission.

Auditable

• Audit trail: There's a record of every change to the process, who owns it, and what ran, when, and with which inputs and outputs.
• Change control: Nothing goes live without an agreed approval and testing process.

What happens when spreadsheets stop running the process?

Spreadsheets will always have a place in finance for analysis, modelling and one-off work. The issue is when they become the system behind a regulatory process.

For this bank, replacing spreadsheet-driven reporting meant getting regulatory commitments back on track within a month, and giving more than 100 finance users the skills to keep automating.

NextWave helps finance teams find where EUCs are creating risk, decide which processes to automate first and build Alteryx solutions the business can maintain itself, using our AI-enabled accelerator to move faster. Get in touch to see how Alteryx One makes this possible and to explore our proven playbook for rapid success.

Sources

[1] Stuart Leung, Forbes, "Sorry, Your Spreadsheet Has Errors (Almost 90% Do)", 13 September 2014.

[2] NextWave Consulting, "Regulatory reporting automation with Alteryx", August 2025. Client: Global Tier 1 Bank, Group Finance, Regulatory Reporting.