Posted: March 9th, 2015

Excel and the Workplace

Excel and the Workplace

Project description
The controller of a construction company used a spreadsheet to develop a bid on a multi-million dollar office complex. At the last minute he made a change and included $254,000 for overhead expenses he had forgotten about earlier. He inserted this number at the top of a column of numbers. Unfortunately the $254,000 was not included in the final total and the contract was underbid by that amount. The construction company was awarded the contract and was forced to make good on its unrealistically low estimate. Seeking to recover its losses, the construction company took the software vendor to court.
-Should the construction company “win” its lawsuit against the software vendor?
-Why or why not?
-What was the probable cause of the error?