A while ago, Patrick O’Beirne sent me a copy of his book Spreadsheet Check and Control to review. I read it, but I never reviewed it. It’s a very well written, well organized book and I recommend it. But book reviews are hard and I’m a little lazy. Needless to say, I owe Patrick one. To try to make it up to him, I’m publishing the following press release for the EuSpRIG 2007 Conference.

EuSpRIG 2007 – Spreadsheet experts meet in London

Experts From Europe, United States & Canada Meet to Discuss Enterprise Spreadsheet Management issues at the 8th Annual Spreadsheet Risks Conference.

Bury St Edmunds, UK – 3rd June 2007 – The European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group (EuSpRIG), in association with Compassoft, is holding its 2007 conference on the theme of “Enterprise Spreadsheet Management: A Necessary Evil?” on the 11th – 13th July 2007 at Greenwich University, London, United Kingdom. Keynote speakers include Professor Ray Panko of the University of Hawaii, who will be speaking on “Spreadsheet Errors – What the Research Says”, Dean Buckner of the Financial Services Authority who will be giving a regulatory update on the use of spreadsheets in the financial markets, and Paul Bach, CEO of Compassoft, who will be outlining the state of technology identifying and managing spreadsheets in enterprise environments.

“Many studies have shown that significant sums of money are lost by organisations of all sizes because they fail to check thoroughly that spreadsheets, critical to their business, are free of material error”, said Patrick O’Beirne, EuSpRIG chairperson. “EuSpRIG was formed in 1999 to address this and related issues. The annual conference is an excellent place for leaders in this field to come together to discuss the issues and agree on best practices” he continued.

“Finance teams and auditors everywhere know that there is a very high likelihood of multiple material errors in key spreadsheets that are used every day in their company. Compassoft is proud to work with EuSpRIG to raise this issue to a top priority among CFOs, Controllers, and Audit Firms”, said Paul Bach, CEO of Compassoft, the main conference sponsor.

EuSpRIG 2007 is a forum for business people, regulators, auditors, academics and other interested parties to share information and ideas about the management of spreadsheet risks, related problems and opportunities.

There are 18 papers and presentations in this year’s conference. Topics include “Enterprise Spreadsheet Management – A Necessary Good”, “Impact of Errors in Operational Spreadsheets” and “Risk Management for Complex Calculations”, Speakers and delegates are expected from all over Europe, North America and Australia including representatives from Lloyds TSB, HMRC UK, Shell, and universities worldwide.

Further information about EuSpRIG, including the conference programme and booking information is available at www.eusprig.org

About EuSpRIG

EuSpRIG is an organisation dedicated to informing organisations about the material commercial and financial risks involved in the uncontrolled use of untested spreadsheets created by end-users who are not experienced in developing information systems. EuSpRIG is a not-for-profit organisation governed by an elected committee operating under the terms of a written constitution. Committee members include senior managers and directors of leading accounting firms and senior academics from European Universities.

EuSpRIG 2007 Main Conference Sponsor – Compassoft, Inc. Compassoft reduces financial risk by discovering, validating, monitoring and controlling critical financial data files residing on departmental servers and desktop computers worldwide. Compassoft Enterprise is the industry’s only solution that automatically creates a comprehensive analysis of all spreadsheets, databases and reports distributed across your entire organization, including those within and outside of document management systems. This easy to use and deploy software creates and documents a comprehensive controls structure for key distributed spreadsheets, data bases and reports found across your company’s divisions and reporting entities.

EuSpRIG 2007 Conference Co-Sponsors
The following organizations are pleased to support the EuSpRIG 2007 Conference: SecureXLS, Baker Tilly, Spreadsheet Engineering Ltd, AuditNet, Systems Modelling, Information Systems Audit and Control Association – Northern Chapter, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, University of Greenwich.

EuSpRIG Contact
Grenville Croll, EuSpRIG Membership Secretary, c/o
Spreadsheet Engineering Ltd, 63a Churchgate Street, Bury St
Edmunds, United Kingdom, +44 (0) 1284 748020,
grenville@spreadsheetrisks.com.