Why Systems?
| Why not spreadsheets |
- Nonprogrammers find spreadsheets easy to use because they are essentially computerized ledger books whose formatting and calculations can be easily changed.
- Spreadsheets were designed to analyze data. But for storing and retrieving data and reporting on large amounts of data, databases have a clear advantage over spreadsheets because of their data structure.
- Spreadsheets are typically two-dimensional—they have rows and columns—and as a result have difficulty expressing and maintaining complex relationships between data. They maintain these relationships through formulas entered into individual cells rather than key fields that can be rapidly sorted and searched, as in a database.
- So spreadsheets are not the optimal tool for recording client transactions and reporting on a portfolio’s aging.
- But they are extremely useful for analyzing financial and portfolio indicators and for presenting information. In an MIS, spreadsheets can complement the database system managing the bulk of the data.
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| Why not manual systems |
- Manual systems, while the easiest to understand, are the most corruptible and inefficient method of storing and retrieving financial data.
- They are prone to abuse and fraud, to mathematical error, and to information loss through improper storage.
- They are typically slow and labour-intensive in producing reports. And they are cumbersome for statistical analysis of trends and causality.
- In a large-volume institution a computerized database is vastly preferable.
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