Xy Spreadsheet Solutions

XY Spreadsheet Solutions is a Microsoft Excel development consultancy with a focus on delivering higher quality at a lower cost. Working remotely, I can service the UK and US. Past clients have come from a wide range of industries, but with 10-years experience of working at investment banks, I can offer something extra to financial services companies. Projects generally focus on a requirement for a high-complexity workbook that can only be implemented with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming. Examples of such things might be the fetching of spreadsheet inputs from a website, database or another system; rich user interface behaviour using event handling and custom forms; or the generation of PDF invoices/quotations. I drive quality through the application of Agile development techniques and best practices, something rare among independent Excel developers, who often do not come from a software engineering background. In this paradigm, as features are developed, a set of automated test macros are produced that simulate an end-user’s actions, and checks that the resulting behaviour is as expected. In addition, lessons learned from one development cycle are fed back into future ones to drive continuous improvement, and Agile project management techniques are applied to ensure that the next highest priority feature set will always be next under development. Flexibility is also key, so onerous upfront specifications are traded for conversations, quick mock-ups and the delivery of working features early on. And re-prioritisation of any remaining requirements carries no penalty if the business drivers change. For more information about the services offered, see the main website.