Financial Modeling Frameworks to Build Error-Free Models In Excel Using SIMPLE Method

Written By Paul Barnhurst

In this episode of Financial Modeler’s Corner, host Paul Barnhurst sits down with Babatope Agbeyo, a corporate trainer with extensive experience in financial modeling, Excel, and valuation. Babatope shares about his "SIMPLE" modeling framework, experiences in financial advisory at Deloitte, and lessons from training over 3,000 professionals globally. He also discusses his passion for keeping financial models structured, logical, and error-free.


Babatope Agbeyo is a financial modeling expert and corporate trainer who has worked across multiple industries, including telecom, manufacturing, oil & gas, and tech. With experience at Deloitte and D Brown Consulting, he has reviewed and audited countless financial models, refining his approach through his "SIMPLE" modeling framework. Babatope is a certified AFM and FMVA and is passionate about making financial modeling more structured and effective.

Expect to Learn:

  • The importance of keeping financial models simple and structured

  • Babatope’s SIMPLE modeling framework and how it improves modeling efficiency

  • Common financial modeling mistakes and how to avoid them

  • How to effectively audit financial models using the PAINS approach

  • The best industries for financial modeling and which ones are the most challenging

Here are a few quotes from the episode:

  • "A great financial model should be modular, meaning each calculation block is distinct and easy to read."

  • "Most errors I find in financial models come from poor calculations and linking mistakes."

  • "A well-structured financial model should be easy to read, navigate, and troubleshoot."

Financial modeling isn't just about crunching numbers, it's about telling a story with data, making informed decisions, and ensuring accuracy at every step. Babatope’s SIMPLE framework and PAINS approach remind us that clarity and structure are just as important as technical skill. If you’ve ever struggled with a model that just wouldn’t balance, or spent hours troubleshooting an error, this episode is a must-listen.

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Email - babatopesamuelagbeyo@gmail.com


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In today’s episode:
[01:18] Introduction to the Episode

[03:39] Financial Modeling Horror Story
[05:28] Lessons from Working with David Brown
[07:15] What It’s Like Working at Deloitte
[09:48] The SIMPLE Framework
[14:06] The Art of Teaching Financial Modeling
[16:16] Preparing for the AFM Exam
[21:16] The PAINS Approach to Auditing Models
[24:20] Excel Shortcuts & Unique Modeling Use Cases
[26:08] Biggest Career Lesson
[28:58] Rapid-Fire Questions
[33:38] Final Advice
[34:46] Where to Connect with Babatope


Full Show Transcript

[00:01:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Welcome to Financial Modeler’s Corner. I am your host, Paul Barnhurst. This is a podcast where we talk all about the art and the science of financial modeling with distinguished financial modelers from around the globe. The Financial Modelers Corner podcast is brought to you by the Financial Modeling Institute. FMI offers the most respected accreditations in financial modeling, the best way to validate your modeling skills to the community and your employers. And that's why I completed the Advanced Financial modeling. This week. I'm thrilled to welcome to the show Babatope Samuel Agbeyo. Welcome to Financial Modeler’s Corner.


[00:02:05] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Thank you Paul. It's my pleasure.


[00:02:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Really excited to have you. Thanks for joining us. Let me read a little bit of a brief bio about Babatope and then we'll jump into the questions. So he's a seasoned finance professional and an exceptional corporate trainer with extensive experience in delivering high impact training programs. Over the years, he has trained more than 3000 executives across diverse industries, both domestically and internationally. He's a highly skilled facilitator and has taught courses in finance, accounting, excel, valuations and modeling. The approach he uses is called tag simple, self-explanatory, intuitive, modular, precise and professionally presented. Logical and error free, so we'll jump into that later on. Models. You know, in addition to his training experience, he's done a lot of webinars on financial modeling, has been invited to speak at various industries. He's also done everybody's favorite thing of having to review and audit models. He's done hundreds of those, and the approach he likes to use there is called PAINS, presentation, assumptions, integrity, numerical structure to check those errors before joining the big four. He also worked for D Brown Consulting, doing financial modeling as a lead there. He holds his AFM and FMVA certificates and we are thrilled to have him. So there's a little bit about his background. So we like to start every interview with this question. Tell me your horror story. I know you've seen a terrible model somewhere along the way, or you've built one or dealt with one.


[00:03:48] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Absolutely, Paul. And the particular model is a situation where the model is well built, but then the divisor has an error, so the cost of sales was not divided by the divisor, but then every other line items were divided by the divisor. So when you do this the switch to units and calculates properly. But then when you do the switch to maybe thousand or million, then you have a loss. And the question now is where is this coming from. And it's because of the divisor right. And that was the other one.


[00:04:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. That would be horrible if you change you. Yeah. They didn't adjust things correctly. So it sounds like it was an easy fix once you found out what was causing it.


[00:04:34] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Yeah, absolutely. Later it was able to easily find out and we were able to resolve it.


[00:04:40] Host: Paul Barnhurst: But yeah, in the meantime, that would be painful. So what was your key takeaway from that experience? What did it really kind of remind you?


[00:04:49] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: That's important is to always double check and pay attention to details after building your model. Make sure that you always double check it to ensure that it's error free.


[00:04:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, and you know, I kind of laugh when you say error free. I always make my goal. Yes, I want error free, but I'm like no material errors because I know I'm going to mess up somewhere, right? I mean, it's so hard to, especially the more complex that model gets. But I love that goal, right? That should. What we all strive for is pay attention to detail and create an error free model. Some are probably better at it than I am, but so I like it.


[00:05:26] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: I agree with you.


[00:05:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So you worked for Dave Brown Consulting for four years. So as you probably know, and anyone who's listening to the show for a long time knows Dave Brown was one of the first guests we had or David Brown on the show, one of my favorite interviews. A lot of fun. We had some great conversations. So I've loved a little bit to know about what the experience was like, you know, working for David Brown. Maybe tell us something about him that our audience might not know.


[00:05:54] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: The best experience I've ever had when it comes to my career is working with David. David took me from ground zero in building a financial model to about 80% in building a financial model. And speaking about David, I see David as a leader and he has this simple approach to breaking down concepts. David is such a person that he has built several approaches in which you can easily understand concepts, and then you will. It's actually very, very relatable. Right. And there is someone that is very, very happy to share knowledge. You can easily go to a meeting and then he will tell you that, oh, this is what you need to do. And it is actually a very good Excel user ability when it comes to Excel. I think David is top rated.


[00:06:42] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. No, that's my impression as well. He strikes me as someone who's very good at teaching concepts. I know he know he knows Excel really well. You know, he's passionate about really being able to teach something in a way that people will understand it, because we've all probably we've all had those times when we were listening to a teacher and he was like, I'm lost. I have no idea what this person's talking about. And that does nobody any good.


[00:07:06] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: I agree with.


[00:07:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You. But that's really cool. It's a great kind of mentor, so to speak, to have someone to work with early in your career. I mean, I think he's fabulous at what he does. So you've gone on to work for Deloitte, now you're doing some financial advisory work. I'm curious, what do you have an industry you focus on, type of modeling or a little bit of everything? What's the kind of work like you're doing today for Deloitte?


[00:07:29] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Well, there's no specific industry I model. Virtually every industry I've done telecoms, I've done manufacturing tech, oil and gas and water. So I don't have a specific industry, but I just do. Virtually every industry.


[00:07:48] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I just model whatever's needed. Got it. I'm curious, do you have a favorite kind of industry or model type you like building? Like, I really enjoy telecom or mining or, you know, whatever. Is there an industry you prefer over others?


[00:08:03] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Well, if for preference I would go for manufacturing. And the reason for that is because it's actually very, very easy to model a manufacturing company. All you need is a price and a volume. Once you have the unit price and you have the volume, then it's very, very easy for you to model the revenue and therefore the cost as well. Can get your raw material, your direct cost, easy to model. And that is the reason why I prefer manufacturing company.


[00:08:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So manufacturing straightforward easy. What's the most difficult industry for you that you've modeled so far? What's kind of most challenging?


[00:08:37] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: I would say oil and gas because of the different principles and the laws that you have to incorporate.


[00:08:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And what are some of those kind of principles or things you have to incorporate? What is it you have to be thinking about with oil and gas.


[00:08:52] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Okay. So different countries have their own laws that you have to incorporate in the model. And then if you don't have an understanding of those laws or those principles, then it might be difficult, which simply means that there's a need for you to read about it. Once you've read about it, then you need to sit down with it and then see how you're going to incorporate that into the model.


[00:09:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I can see where that's a ton of work. All those regulations. That makes a lot of sense to me. I get that. So you know what I've heard that's tough from people, you know, mining and some of the sustainability when you're going out 30, 50 years, you know, things like that. I most of my modeling experience, almost all of it has been, you know, budgeting and forecasting investment decisions, you know, very little three statement, a little bit of M&A but mostly budget forecast type stuff, so it's always interesting to hear the different things people model. So you've taught thousands of people, you know about modeling, as we mentioned, and you have a framework you like to use called simple. Can you talk a little bit about where that framework came from. And just tell us about the framework.


[00:10:01] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Okay. So I developed this simple framework and it's an average of the first standard and the trendy principles of a good spreadsheet by the ICW. I've always followed the first standard that is the flexible, appropriate, structured and transparent. But then I sat down one day and then I was like, I can pick from the first standard and also pick from the 20 principles of a good spreadsheet to come up with my own approach to build a model. And that was what informed the simple approach that I called Structured Interactive, modular, precise, logical and then error free. And then the whole idea is that any model that you build should actually be simple, and that is the way to go.


[00:10:50] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I love the tagline because right, we always talk about keeping models simple. Now there's something behind that, right? You know the structure, the self explanatory, the intuitive, the modular, the precise, the logical, the error free. So let's just talk about 1 or 2 of them. What does it mean to you to be for a model to be modular?


[00:11:10] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: When you say that the model should be modular, it simply means that you need to have a distinct calculation block for each of your line item. And that's it makes it to be easy to read. And then for an individual to be able to easily troubleshoot it, let's say for example, you are building, let's say a revenue schedule. And then after that in your revenue schedule you have volume. And then you also have maybe your volume growth. Now if there is a need for you to then build your cost of sales schedule now on your cost of sales schedule. Now, instead of linking back to the role where you have your revenue. What you need to do is to spell out all the extracts that you're going to use to build your cost of sales. So you spell out all the extra you need, your unit price, you need your volume, and that is what you use to build your cost of sales. So you need to have a distinct calculation block for each of your line items.


[00:12:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it. So basically have that calculation block build up the schedule in each area of revenue you need. You might need volume price, any constraints. You know, Cogs, whatever the inputs are and whatever level you need to build it up, build up all those calculation blocks and then you can link through the rest of the model.


[00:12:27] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Yes, it makes it to be very, very easy to read.


[00:12:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. No, I agree, I think, you know, AFM teaches that approach. You know, they focus on you doing that for the test. And I find it works very well. It helped me a lot to take that and see the way they lay out that three statement model, you know, and what is a precise and professionally presented. So kind of the presented side of that, what does that mean to you is that the executive summary is that cover sheets. What does that entail to make sure a model is professionally presented?


[00:13:06] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: When we talk about professionalism in model, it talks about how you actually structure your model. And then I agree with you that you can also relate that to your executive summary as well. AFM is such an executive summary that entails information that is very, very useful to the key stakeholders to be able to make decision. I see a lot of models today that are not useful, and it is not useful because they do not have the key information that is required by the key stakeholders to be able to make information and such a model. Its last, its last content because it doesn't have those key information. So as a result of that, when you build your model, professionalism is very, very key. Make sure that it is well presented, well detailed and it's able to answer the key questions of the stakeholders so that they'll be able to make such a model to make informed decisions.


[00:14:03] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it. That makes sense to me. So, you know, when you're teaching people, what's your favorite part about teaching financial modeling? What do you like about teaching people?


[00:14:14] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: When teaching people I, the part that I love the most is when I teach them get scheduled. So working with David, he built a dynamic debt schedule that you can use to automate. I mean, thousands if I'm not exaggerating here, but they're thousands of in-debt. I know new company might take thousands. But then let's say, for example, you have maybe about 1010 dates. You can build just a single schedule, and from that single schedule, use it to automate for all the different dates that you might want to incorporate in the model. And that is the best part for me, because it always looks like a magic when you are teaching in class. So when I get to class and then I get to that part, then I start teaching them how to build it. A lot of my students, they always see that as a magic. And I find it very, very interesting because it's very, very helpful for them. It helps them to optimize their tasks and then make them to be very, very efficient when they're working as well.


[00:15:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I like that, you know, it's always fun when people think something you're doing is magic. And they see that moment of, oh, wow, I can do that. I've seen that more than a few times. When you teach Power Query and people are like, wait, I don't have to do this manually or whatever it might be, but that's one that often stands out for me. So, you know, I want to ask you a question about the advanced financial modeler. You earned that from FMI. You know, obviously you did FP&A, you'd been teaching people. So what motivated you to earn the designation? Why did you decide that you know, that was something you wanted to earn?


[00:15:44] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: The reason why I had to write the AFM exam is because I really want to have a general understanding of model, and then see it from another perspective. I've been building models. I've been teaching people. I've been training people to even write the exam. But then I want to see it from a different perspective. And then joining the AFM is actually a very good one for me, because it made me to see how to build a model in a very simple way.


[00:16:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, it allows you to see that in a very simple way. What was your favorite part of kind of preparing that or taking it, or what did you find most valuable?


[00:16:23] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: What I find most valuable in the AFM course is the troubleshooting parts. That is the 10th session. I love that. I mean, I've been able to build up on that, to be able to review models and pick errors and reasons why balance sheet does not balance.


[00:16:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You know, I like that. And you know, being able to troubleshoot a model is so critical. Finding those errors and mistakes. Anyone who's built enough models has had a balance sheet, not balance. Right. We've all been there. And it's easy to be like I'm just going to plug it. Screw it. I'm just going to stick it in retained earnings and I'm done. And you're laughing because I'm sure you've had more than one moment you've wanted to do that. But being able to troubleshoot and figure out why it's wrong is so important.


[00:17:12] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Absolutely. Although I've never done that. But then I've seen an instance where a people make use of either cash or retain any as a plug in. And what that caused is that at every point the model keeps balancing. Even when you delete a line item, it's still going to balance because it keeps backsolving itself.


[00:17:34] Host: Paul Barnhurst: FP&A Guy here and as you know I am very passionate about financial modeling and the Financial Modeling Institute's mission. I have been a huge fan of the FMI for years, and I was super excited when they decided to sponsor the Financial Modelers Corner. I recently completed the Advanced Financial Modeler certification and love the entire experience. It was top notch from start to finish. I am a better modeler today for having completed the certification. I strongly believe every modeler needs to demonstrate they are a qualified financial modeler, and one of the best ways to do that is through the FMI's program. Earning the accreditation will demonstrate to your current and future employers that you are serious about financial modeling. What are you waiting for? Visit www.fminstitute.com/podcast and use Code Podcast to save 15% when you enroll in an accreditation today.


[00:18:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, exactly. People do things to force us to always balance, and you often don't know that you have other issues. But whenever you force, we've all seen it. You start digging in. You know, I have this one model I work on, and there's 4 or 5 years in the model and everything balances. But like one month it's like $180 out. And I finally just said, fine, I'm leaving it. Wow. You know, because it's literally like millions of dollars. And I went through it like line by line and couldn't figure it out. So I'm like, all right, 180 on millions. It's one of like 60 months, I don't care. Close enough. I didn't plug it. I just left it and said, okay, it's slightly out of balance for this month. It'll be okay. Or, you know, I've had some unreconciled cash items and I think across a total year they're like $3,000. I'm like, all right, I'm okay having a line there. There's that materiality, right? You want it to be right. You want it to be error free. And if you know everything else makes sense, everybody's using it. It's good. And it's just one little thing that sometimes you have to be like, all right, not material, but you have to know modeling well enough to be able to do that.


[00:19:42] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Absolutely.


[00:19:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Otherwise you do things like, you know, we've all seen where you plug it, and then all of a sudden you have negative cash or, you know, you have some other crazy asset building up and somebody comes in and goes, this makes no sense. What's going on here? Yeah. I had one guy guest I had on the show one time. He told me he came across a model where, you know, they'd put their error checks in. You know, you do, like, hey, if it bounces, okay, if it doesn't balance error. But they had written the if statement to say if it balances. Okay. If it doesn't balance. Okay. Wow. Both the true and false were okay. And he dug into this model and it was $17 billion out of balance and nobody had caught it.


[00:20:30] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: No.


[00:20:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Seriously. And so that one made me laugh. I'm like, that's a great way to. Well, I built all the error checks. They just say okay, no matter what.


[00:20:40] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Yeah. And I mean, people really bent on the error check because when you do that error check, it's more like helps you to keep track. But then in building your error check, one thing I'm able to learn from this is that you need to also double check whatever formula that you might have built in in your error check, and ensure that it calculates properly.


[00:21:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You got to have those error checks and you got to review them, make sure they're all calculating correctly, and it's not enough to just say, I built the error checks and then always assume everything's good. You still need to do some logical checks to make sure. And speaking of that, so it comes to reviewing and auditing models. You know in the introduction we mentioned the PAINS approach. So talk to us about that. I mean, walk us through those steps and how you use it.


[00:21:25] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Okay, so for the PAINS approach I would give you a background story. So at my earlier career, it was very, very difficult for me to balance a model. I've built several models, but then it kept going off balance. It doesn't balance. Then one day at the office, we had a training and David had to review an individual model. And at that point David was checking, started from the cash flow, went to the balance sheet. And I was trying to see the movement of cash. And at the end of the day, the model of balance. And I was like, wow, this is magic. But then I now had to go back to my own model that I've built several years, take it, and I was able to balance it. I was very, very happy that day. And then and then I sat down and came up with this particular approach that whenever you want to build your model, or the error in your model is two things. The reason that is it is a pain. That particular error is a pain, and for you to be able to review your model. The first part that you need to start from is a presentation. Then check your assumption and show that it is a logical shared the integrity of the model and then look out for numerical calculation. See that it's well calculated. And then the last thing is that it is well structured and presented.


[00:22:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. So I'm curious in the, you know, talk about PAINS. Where do you think most of the problems come from? Is it presentation assumptions numerical structure integrity. What do you most often see?


[00:22:59] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Well I won't say assumption because assumption is subjective. But then I will say numerical because it is in the calculation how they've linked it and then how they might have done their computation. That is most of the errors that I've seen in hundreds and hundreds and thousands of models that I've reviewed. It really comes from North America.


[00:23:19] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Sure. And that makes sense. And why do you think that is? Is it because they poorly designed the model? Is it you know, the Excel skills aren't. They're getting too complex with formulas. Why do you think the errors tend to be numerical. Like what's kind of the root root of why that happens so often?


[00:23:36] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: I'd rather go with being poorly presented because if you've not presented your model very well, it's and they've not linked properly. I think it also results in from linking error as well. So if it is not being calculated very well and it's not properly linked into the model, then it's going to be calculated wrongly. I give you an example, a situation where you need to link your KPIs as an outflow of cash into your cash flow statement. Then you link it as positive. That means that your cash flow from investing will be wrongly compute it. So that is just an error that we would need to look at for.


[00:24:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it. That makes sense. That's a good example. All right. So a couple little more fun questions here. The first one I think is a little bit fun. What's your favorite Excel shortcut.


[00:24:29] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Best shortcut to me is Ctrl R. Ctrl D, copy your formula to the right and then copy the formula down.


[00:24:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I am not surprised. That's a very common one for sure that Ctrl R, Ctrl D right. We all want things to be simple. What's the most unique kind of funnest thing you have used Excel for in your personal life? That most unique model or use case?


[00:24:56] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Well, I've not used any in particular for myself, but then I built one for someone, so this individual won't use it to track his expense because he's planning for his wedding, so he wants to be able to track his expense and then his cash flow. And he then requested that I assist him to come up with an A tracker. So I came up with that tracker. I sent it to him, and then he was able to use that to track his high flows.


[00:25:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Now, so the question is, did he still go over? Did he over spend anyway?


[00:25:27] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Yes, he still had to overspend. But then it gave him actually a clue as to what is to expect.


[00:25:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, he may have overspent, but he was able to quickly see oh I've really overspent or I need to rein it in. Yes, we're a little bit over, but I can manage this. Sometimes just seeing the number is eye opening when you're like, wait, I've spent how much? And we all know weddings, you know, and there are wonderful things are notorious for being expensive.


[00:26:05] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Yeah.


[00:26:06] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So I like that one. Yeah. As you look back over your career, what's the number one lesson you've learned that's helped you the most? So maybe advice given experience you had, but that number one lesson that's helped you the most in your career?


[00:26:20] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: For me, it's basically to master the basics and then make sure that you always keep things simple. When I started my career building model, I have a little knowledge of accounting. So I had to start from the basics, and then I started building upon it. I knew nothing about Excel at the point when I started, but then getting started from the basic actually assisted me. And I remember that I told you earlier that it was more like taking me from ground zero to more like ground 8080, right? So it's more like make sure that you know the basic once you know the foundation, I can tell you for free that you can easily build up on that.


[00:26:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I love that. There's two things I kind of took away in the advice there. And that first. Right. Learn the basics. Learning the Earnings. A foundation will benefit you on anything you're doing. If you learn the foundation of that process and then focus on keeping it simple. And as I like to say, try to build the model as simple as you can because the business will make your end user will make it more complex on you regardless. So don't make it more complex yourself. Others will want to do that for you whether you want it or not.


[00:27:30] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Yeah. Simplicity is actually very, very key.


[00:27:34] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. And you know, one of my favorite sayings is simple is hard, complex is easy. It's often easier to write that big old long nested if statement. But it's not the right way to do it. Often you have to really think to make things simple. You have to really understand them. I struggle with that. I mean, I've written plenty of probably formulas that are more complex than they should be over the years. So I really like that advice.


[00:28:03] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Yeah. One thing is that most times when you build those long formulas, going back to now troubleshoot them is difficult because you might have even forgotten how you came about this formula. But then at the point of building it. Yes. Thoughts and thinking. Thinking through it, they're able to get it, but then coming back to it to now explain. Very, very difficult. And that is one thing that I picked from the first time, that I should be able to explain any formula within 24 seconds.


[00:28:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. So one I really like, is that a guest on the other day? He goes, you know, make sure you keep your formulas simple enough that you can explain them tomorrow. Like, right the next time you look at the workbook next week, whenever you actually know what it's doing, because we've all done that, you finish something, you open it up and you're like, what was I trying to do here? And you spend, you know, 40 minutes trying to unpick the formula you've written. I mean, I've done that plenty. So all right, we're going to move into our section called Rapid Fire. I'll lay the groundwork of how this works. I know you've listened to some episodes so you know the basics. No. No consulting answers. No. It depends. You got to pick a side, yes or no. And then you can elaborate at the end on 1 or 2 of them, because there's nuance to all of them. I understand that. So the ones you're most passionate about. So are you ready.


[00:29:25] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Yes.


[00:29:27] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Circular references. Yes or no? No VBA yes or no?


[00:29:33] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: No.


[00:29:35] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Do you prefer a horizontal model. So lots of worksheets or kind of vertical with all your schedules in one one tab.


[00:29:42] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Vertical.


[00:29:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Vertical. All right. Excel dynamic arrays and models. Yes or no.


[00:29:48] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Limits.


[00:29:49] Host: Paul Barnhurst: No no. Got it. External workbook links. Yes or no.


[00:29:54] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: No no.


[00:29:55] Host: Paul Barnhurst: No no. Yeah I, I often get a double no on that one or a hell no named ranges. Yes or no I could tell you come from David Brown, School of Modeling. I know that's what he was big on is a no. Do you follow a formal standards board? It sounds like you have your own. And you follow. Similar to fast. Is that right?


[00:30:14] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Yes. You're correct. I follow fast.


[00:30:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay. Should financial modelers learn Python in Excel? What do you think?


[00:30:22] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: It depends really. And it depends on what you use it to do. So depending on what you do. Yeah that's fine. But for me I think I would rather do Excel Power Query and Power BI.


[00:30:35] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. So do you think modelers need to learn Power Query? Yes I figured on that one. And then you mentioned power BI. Do you think most of them need to learn that one as well?


[00:30:46] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Absolutely. Yeah. Because as a modeler, as a financial analyst, you also analyze and there's a need for you to also visualize your data. So there's a need for you to have a knowledge of as you know, no Excel, no Power BI and also be able to clean your data using Power Query.


[00:31:04] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I love me some Power Query. I mean, I know basics of power BI, but I could definitely get better there. And Python not so much, but I want to learn it. I just need free time. All right, will excel ever die? It's going to live forever. Yes or no?


[00:31:19] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: No.


[00:31:21] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Will I build the models for us in the future?


[00:31:25] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Sometimes in the future.


[00:31:27] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Like it? Do you believe financial models are the number one corporate decision making tool?


[00:31:32] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Yes.


[00:31:34] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Alrighty. And then, what's your lookup function of choice? Sure, I choose Vlookup index match Xlookup something else.


[00:31:43] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: In this much.


[00:31:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. An index match. Match guy. That's a pretty common one. We're starting to get a few more of filter. And there's a question is that a lookup or not. Right. Everybody has an opinion. But I think I got offset the other day. It's like yeah you could do lookups with that. I don't know if that'd be my first choice, but it works. All right, anything you want to elaborate there? Any of those questions you answered? I know you kind of went back and forth on dynamic arrays a little bit.


[00:32:10] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Yes, I will talk about dynamic arrays. And then the reason for that is because I once built a model for someone, and then I used Xlookup and after sending the model to the client, then he sent a message to me that he has name errors. And I was like, okay, why do you have name error? And it's because of the version of Excel that he's using now, because it is not compatible with his own version of Excel, he's not able to use Excel. As a result of that, I had to lessen and reduce the use of dynamic array. As I would ask the client, what is the version of Excel that you're using before I then decide as to if I want to do dynamic array or not. Otherwise I just make it very easy and then use a function that is compatible with any version.


[00:32:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. No, it's a great point. The compatibility issue. I mean, I know Microsoft would love to be able to have one cloud version globally that everybody's using, but one cloud doesn't use VBA. Two. There's some challenges around that. So for the foreseeable future, at least at least short term, we're going to have to deal with version control. And that's so important with dynamic arrays because someone who has 2016 gets your model, opens it up, and nothing works. That's a huge problem. So I agree with you that that's one area you definitely have to be careful about with dynamic arrays. All right. So we're going to wrap up here I just have two last questions for you. The first is.


[00:33:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: If.


[00:33:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You could offer one piece of advice for someone to be a better financial modeler, what would that advice be? What would you be? One thing they could focus on.


[00:33:54] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: The advice one individual will be keep learning. Do not relent. You will surely, surely get there and I break it down. The first one is that you need to learn the process. Learn the foundation. Be able to know accounting, finance and excel. Those are very, very key. Also, you need to be able to pay attention to details. Most models are actually very very critical in making decision. And if you do not pay attention to detail you may make mistake. And then that number may then be either overcast or undercast. And that is very very strong. So you really need to pay attention to details when you're building your model. In summarizing it, make sure that you learn the basics and then pay attention to details.


[00:34:40] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I really like that. You know, is that always be learning. Learn the basics. Pay attention to details. Last question. If someone's listening to this podcast and they'd like to get in touch with you or learn more, what's the best way for them to do that?


[00:34:54] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: They can reach out to me on LinkedIn and I'm happy to connect with them.


[00:34:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Perfect. Well, we'll make sure to put your LinkedIn in the show notes so people can find it there and appreciate you joining us here this evening. Good evening. My morning to chat. Thank you so much.


[00:35:10] Guest: Babatope Agbeyo: Thank you to Paul.


[00:35:11] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Financial Modelers Corner was brought to you by the Financial Modeling Institute. This year I completed the Advanced Financial Modeler certification and it made me a better financial modeling. What are you waiting for? Visit FMI at www.fminstitute.com/podcast and use code Podcast to save 15% when you enroll in one of the accreditations today.

Paul Barnhurst
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