Bespoke Excel Spreadsheet Development & VBA Programming

Excel Works Limited is a UK software consultancy that builds bespoke Excel/VBA spreadsheet solutions for businesses and organisations of any kind.

The consultancy is run by Roger Hautle, who designs and develops spreadsheet applications, tools and models for businesses and organisations from a wide range of backgrounds; every spreadsheet is tailored to a customer's specific requirements and built to exact specifications. Most spreadsheets are code-driven using Excel's built-in programming language Visual Basic for Applications; many of them connect to external data sources such as databases, existing customer systems or the Internet; and there are spreadsheets that are just formula-driven. All spreadsheets are robustly built, well-structured and designed for flexibility so they can get expanded should new requirements arise.

Customers come to Excel Works because they want to...

automate laborious or manual tasks to eliminate human error and/or speed up processes
develop bespoke spreadsheet tools that make things possible that could not be done before
capture and organise business data to have it readily accessible and easily maintained
extract data from existing systems to process or analyse it beyond the systems' capabilities
turn raw data into meaningful information displaying it in compelling reports and dashboards
get help with spreadsheet design aspects, or get snippets of VBA code for a certain job
receive customised Excel or VBA training to be able to solve problems on their own

Some customers have a spreadsheet built and that's it, while others have tools or models built that evolve over time and get expanded as new requirements arise. Either way, Excel Works offers future maintenance and support for all solutions it delivers.

If you are looking for someone who can design robust, well-structured and neatly finished spreadsheets then please check out engaging Roger. You can send an email, briefly stating what your issue is together with any attachments that help clarify what you want - the clearer your description the easier it is for me to assess your issue and come up with a time & cost frame.

The main person in the consultancy is Roger Hautle, a Swiss software engineer who lives near Oxford in the south of England, 60 miles north-west of London. Roger does most of the design, development and programming work on his own, but he also engages skilled and trusted associates when a project requires additional resources.

Roger cares about quality & purpose and works hard to give his customers a great experience with the spreadsheets they receive. He is committed to building robust solutions that are intuitive to use, reliably do what they are supposed to do, and that can be maintained with little effort; to achieve this he applies engineering rigour to his work to ensure spreadsheets are well-designed, solidly built and neatly finished.

A word about the marvellous Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet:
Microsoft Excel is an incredibly powerful spreadsheet application used by millions; what makes it attractive to so many is being able to get quickly started and its phenomenal flexibility. However, these two qualities also cause serious problems as they easily allow users to do things beyond their capabilities and can invite them to stretch spreadsheets until they become incomprehensible and unreliable.

One can build complex, large spreadsheets that still work reliably and can be understood and maintained. But this requires getting to grips with the spreadsheet at a fundamental level, fully understanding its strengths and weaknesses, mastering basic principles and finding the right features that will do a proper job. When creating formulas, you need a solid layout and the skilled combination of appropriate functions to make them work together smoothly.

VBA briefly explained:
VBA stands for Visual Basic for Applications – applications are the tools of the Microsoft Office suite like Excel, Word, Outlook, etc. VBA is the built-in programming language behind these applications which can be programmatically manipulated through it. VBA is readily available to every user - just press ALT+F11 together to launch the Visual Basic Editor within which all VBA programming is done. Each application has its own VBA variation or so-called Object Model. Chunks of VBA code are often referred to as 'macros'. Macro code is recorded using Excel's macro-recorder and is then tweaked to solve the task at hand. Such code is most often not designed or structured in any way and sort of just evolves. Developing VBA code on the other hand is understood as properly engineering code, resulting in a well-designed program with a clear structure.

VBA code (either recorded or engineered) allows users to customise and control these Microsoft applications in almost any way they like (recording macros only gets you so far, and then you need to start developing code to do the really useful (and cool) stuff). When it comes to Excel, VBA allows users to accomplish tasks that are not possible by using formulas and functions alone; they can alter Excel's default behaviour, add new features, automate entire processes or develop complex applications. When people talk about automating Excel they often refer to manipulating it through VBA code as just described.

Excel Works is located near Oxford, 60 miles north-west of London in the UK. Roger mostly works with customers over the phone and through remote desktop sessions, but he can travel to London, Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton, Brighton or even further if required.