excelfinanceAPP-026

The Excel Financial Analyst

#excel#finance#analyst#spreadsheets#modeling

Aha Moment

“What was the moment this product clicked?” —

Identity

A financial analyst at a corporation, investment firm, or consultancy for whom Excel is not software — it is the medium of thought. They spend 5–7 hours a day inside spreadsheets. They build models that other people are afraid to open. They have keyboard shortcuts memorized that the rest of the company doesn't know exist. They've rescued a broken model the night before a board presentation. They have opinions about Excel that they share without being asked.

Intention

What are they trying to do? —

Outcome

What do they produce? —

Goals

→Build models that are fast, accurate, and can be handed off without a tutorial
→Refresh data from source systems without rebuilding anything
→Run scenarios quickly enough that the analysis drives the meeting, not the other way around

Frustrations

—Workbooks that slow down because of volatile functions nobody removed
—Collaborating in Excel with people who don't know what they're doing to the structure
—The version control problem — email chains of files named "Final_v3_REVISED_USE THIS"
—Power Query breaking when the source data schema changes slightly

Worldview

A model is only as good as its assumptions — and those need to be visible, not buried
If you can't explain the formula, you don't understand the answer
Excel is infinitely flexible, which means infinite ways to build something unmaintainable

Scenario

They're building a 3-year P&L model for a new product line. Finance has asked for three scenarios by Thursday. The revenue assumptions are linked to a marketing model a colleague built last quarter that has since been updated — but they're not sure how the update affected the numbers they're pulling. It's Tuesday. There is also a pivot table that has stopped refreshing and they're not sure why.

Context

Works in Excel 6–7 hours per day. Uses Windows — Excel on Mac is a different, lesser product in their view. Has a personal library of templates they carry between jobs. Knows VBA well enough to be dangerous. Has started using Python for some data prep but returns to Excel for the actual model. Uses Excel with two monitors — the model on one, source data on the other. Has dark feelings about Google Sheets.

Impact

→Faster co-authoring that doesn't corrupt structure lets collaboration happen without fear
→Better version history at the cell level replaces the email chain version control system
→Stable data connections that handle schema changes reduce the maintenance tax on linked models
→Improved scenario management tools replace the manual tab-duplication approach

Composability Notes

Pairs with `finance-manager` for the model review and presentation workflow. Contrast with `google-sheets-user` to map the power-user vs. collaboration tradeoff. Use with `data-engineer` for scenarios involving Excel-to-database migration.