Solutions for Comparing Excel Files

Although the ability to collaborate and share Excel spreadsheets is essential, it also presents risks. Version control problems can reduce accuracy and require time-consuming reconciliation of multiple versions, which in turn raises costs and reduces productivity. These consequences become even more pronounced as a file proliferates through an organization.

An organization that does not adequately address the errors caused by sharing Excel files can suffer a variety of consequences, including damage to the organization's brand, lost customers, legal actions, and fines for improperly managing information. An organization's inability to track this information or its failure to produce it in a timely way can also lead to enormous legal judgments or sanctions.

• A cut-and-paste error cost TransAlta $24 million when it underbid an electricity-supply contract. Source: The Register

• Falsely-linked spreadsheets permitted fraud totaling $700 million at Allied Irish Bank/Allfirst. Source: European Spreadsheet Interest Group (EuSpRiG)

• Kodak's SEC 10-K filing reported a material weakness in its internal controls surrounding the preparation and review of spreadsheets that include new or changed formulas. Source: Compliance Week

• A first-year associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton made an Excel reformatting error that mistakenly added 179 contracts to an agreement to buy Lehman Brothers assets. The associate resized the rows when converting the spreadsheet into a PDF document, causing "hidden" contracts in the spreadsheet to be exposed. Source: Computerworld

Changes can be made quickly to critical spreadsheets, and spreadsheet owners and approvers may have no idea what was changed. With Workshare's comparison tools, users can easily compare two different Excel files and graphically see the differences.

Compare Excel Spreadsheets

Workshare Compare for Excel provides advanced comparison to identify changes to Excel files.