Named Ranges and External Links Fixes for Finance Professionals to Build Accurate Models with Joel Steendam

Written By Paul Barnhurst

In this episode, host Paul Barnhurst aka The FP&A Guy looks into Excel expertise with Joel Steendam. Joel shares his global experiences, technical know-how, and practical advice to improve Excel proficiency and financial modeling outcomes. Their conversation covers Excel tools, design principles, and the importance of curiosity and cultural awareness in professional success.

Joel Steendam is a global Excel expert and educator with a passion for helping professionals create better financial models. As a key member of PerfectXL, he develops software to improve spreadsheet quality, mitigate risks, and promote best practices in Excel. With a multicultural background and years of experience in financial modeling, Joel blends technical expertise with a deep understanding of how culture influences collaboration and problem-solving.


Expect to Learn:

  • Worst financial models and how to fix common spreadsheet issues.

  • Why named ranges and documentation are essential in financial modeling.

  • How Joel’s multicultural upbringing has shaped his professional approach and success.

  • Practical advice on staying curious and learning new Excel skills.

  • The role of tools like PerfectXL in auditing and improving spreadsheet quality for financial modeling.

Here are a few quotes from the episode:

  • "Even best practices, when misused, can have a massive negative impact on Excel models."

  • "PerfectXL’s tools focus on mitigating risks and improving model quality by emphasizing structure and consistency."

  • "If you build something on Monday that you don’t understand by Wednesday, you’re not building the right thing."


Joel Steendam shared his expertise on improving Excel models, staying curious, and navigating the challenges of financial modeling. Financial models are powerful decision-making tools, but they’re only as effective as their structure and design allow them to be. Joel provided invaluable lessons for both beginners and experienced modelers on structure, documentation, and tools.

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In today’s episode:
[01:49] - Introduction and Meet the Guest

[02:49] - Horror Stories in Financial Models
[04:28] - Key Takeaways from Bad Models
[06:45] - Joel’s Global Background
[10:18] - PerfectXL and Best Practices in Excel
[14:56] - Staying Updated on Excel
[18:03] - Advice for Beginners in Excel
[29:14] - Balancing Excel’s Flexibility and Risks
[36:12] - Fun Projects in Excel
[38:38] - Rapid-Fire Questions
[48:26] - Final Advice for Financial Modelers


Full Show Transcript
[00:01:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Welcome to Financial Modelers Corner. I am your host, Paul Barnhurst. This is a podcast where we talk all about the art and 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, and that's why I completed the Advanced Financial Modeler. I'm thrilled to welcome this week's guest on the show, Joel Steendam. Welcome to the show.


[00:01:56] Guest: Joel Steendam: Thank you so much, Paul. Pleasure to be here. I'm excited to chat a little bit about financial modeling and Excel.


[00:02:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And funny enough, he was telling me how to say the name in Dutch beforehand. So give us the Dutch version here. Your last name.


[00:02:06] Guest: Joel Steendam: That should be steen dum, but it comes essentially from Stone dam, so you could also say it that way. I guess if you wanted to.


[00:02:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Say Joel Stone dam.


[00:02:15] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, go for it. We'll see if I respond.


[00:02:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: But you might be like.


[00:02:18] Guest: Joel Steendam: Works for me.


[00:02:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Right? Somebody said that like my last name, Barnhurst is English, and it originally came from a house that was on the hill, like a barn house. And then somewhere it was Bannister. And in there I had.


[00:02:32] Guest: Joel Steendam: Just from, like, Mr. Barn House.


[00:02:34] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. So somewhere along the line it got turned into barnhurst. But it was the way of knowing some guy back at like the 1600s, he had the barn home up on the hill. And anyway, kind of funny how names work, right?


[00:02:46] Guest: Joel Steendam: A rich lineage.


[00:02:48] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That is for sure. Tell me about that worst model. I know you have a horror story for us.


[00:02:53] Guest: Joel Steendam: Absolutely. You sent over some of the questions beforehand, so I had a little bit of time to think about the worst model. I mean, there's so many bad Excel models out there, right? If you're looking at things like tons of merge cells or super, super overly complicated formulas for things, that could be really simple. But I think one of my favorites is actually a relatively big company. We came across a model with 6000 unused defined names that linked to all kinds of external forces and stuff, but had 3 to 400. External links. So when you open up the file, you just start clicking away one by one. These ridiculous amounts of pop ups and errors and issues. And there were old stuff being referenced from ten years back and stuff like that. And the issue is just that users don't know about this functionality at all, right? They're not comfortable or familiar with the findings. So the model was fully populated by information that nobody was actually making use of, and a little bit of a waste of space, a little bit of a waste of kilobytes, but also a real brain scratcher for the people involved.


[00:03:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. And I'm sure kind of a little bit of time to clean it up to trace all that out. I think we've been there. I've had someone who I think they said there were 400 external workbook links in one file there.


[00:04:04] Guest: Joel Steendam: This one was 320, but none of them were supposed to be used. Right? So there was no actual external links that were supposed to be in the model at all. It was like, are you sure there's 320 of them right here?


[00:04:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. You're sure? Right. Because I'm going to that's when you're like, okay, back up first, then we'll kill it and see what happens.


[00:04:24] Guest: Joel Steendam: Just to be sure. Oh, no. My whole dashboard is gone. Well, yeah.


[00:04:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: What's your key takeaway from an experience like that? Seeing that model with all the name ranges and external workbook links. What did you take away from that?


[00:04:37] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, I think from my perspective, it's good to understand that not everyone is at the same level of Excel use. And even in the same company or in the same team or in the same function, you just have different ways that people go about using Excel models. So I think using something like named ranges, I guess often in our world, how we talk to people that try to suggest things like named rangers because they are best practice, right? Giving a little bit more information as to what's going on with a certain value. If you're working with a fat percentage, whatever it might be. It's generally seen as good best practice, but it's also really important to remember who's working with you or who's working with a model. And if you're going to use named ranges, great. But maybe give a little bit of instruction as to why they're there, how they work, how you can remove the ones that are not supposed to be there, things like that. I think the core takeaway was just that even some things that we sometimes see as best practice when misused can have a massive negative impact as well. So always sort of balancing that theory and the practicality is really important.


[00:05:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I mean they're saying that this great moderation in all things and that can go a long way with a number of things in Excel, particularly named ranges. I think if you want to use them, fine. I've used them in some models, others I haven't. But please just don't use them everywhere and constantly.


[00:05:48] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, yeah. And if you use them try to be clear about the fact that they're being used at least somewhere, whether it's in an intro sheet somewhere, or whether it's just in the explanation you're giving to colleagues that are supposed to be working.


[00:05:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So documentation matters.


[00:06:00] Guest: Joel Steendam: I don't know how many people in practice or in business would agree with me on that, but I definitely think documentation matters. Or at least the transference of information matters a lot.


[00:06:08] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I think everybody will agree it matters. Nobody likes doing it. So we're all waiting. Being able to complete your model, give it to AI and it does your documentation for you. Right? That's what we all want.


[00:06:18] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, let's hope so. Maybe maybe that will work. Maybe it won't. We'll see. And maybe people still won't do it right. That's like still too much time invested.


[00:06:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Hopefully one day Excel will just have it. Hey, here's your documentation for your model. As you close it automatically run by the AI.


[00:06:36] Guest: Joel Steendam: The people reading it will also run it through AI and be like, give me the spark notes version of this documentation and they'll miss all the context.


[00:06:42] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Again, we're humans. We find a way to screw things up. But let's talk a little bit about your background. Introduce yourself to our audience. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Joel.


[00:06:51] Guest: Joel Steendam: Well, I've got a little bit of a strange upbringing. I think maybe my English sounds relatively American, because I did study in the US for university. That's where I got my degree and everything like that. Where I grew up was in China. I spent about 16 years there. I was born in England before that, but my nationality is that I'm from the Netherlands originally and that is where I am back today. So definitely I grew up kind of all over the place, and I think a lot of people always ask me, well, how was it to grow up in China? And I think it's quite difficult to see your own context in where you grew up from somebody else's perspective, because for me it was normal. For me, it was childhood. When I think back to being four years old, it was in China. That's just where I was. That's how it was. So understanding exactly what impact it makes on me today is still kind of variable, but I really like the fact that I grew up with people from different cultures and can better understand people from different cultural backgrounds as well. I think it can be easy, maybe in the West, to sometimes miss the fact that cultural nuance is important also in client relationships and with colleague relationships. We Dutch people are known for being really direct, and that works really well with certain cultures, and they love the fact that you're able to bring across the truth as it is sort of thing. Others not so much. So kind of balancing out those cultural differences and also understanding where someone's coming from or trying to understand why they're doing something that might bother you or it might not sit right with you. It's often kind of a cultural mismatch rather than something somebody is doing.


[00:08:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Sure, yeah. There's a huge cultural aspect. So how many languages do you speak?


[00:08:16] Guest: Joel Steendam: I speak three sort of semi fluently, I guess, Dutch, English and Chinese Mandarin. And I'd like to learn a few more. My wife speaks Spanish as her first language, so we're probably going to be on the Duolingo. Starting to learn that her parents are Dutch. So family situation is fine, but learning a little bit of Spanish would be great.


[00:08:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Love it! Here's how many languages I know and I kind of speak it called American to speak. It was always like, why do you do? Why do you spell everything differently? Use miles instead of metrics. And we just have to be different here in America.


[00:08:51] Guest: Joel Steendam: And so it is a little bit of a superiority complex maybe.


[00:08:54] Host: Paul Barnhurst: But I usually don't like to brag about it. But yeah, that's cute. Speaking of cultural differences, how did having that diverse background, how do you think that's helped you in your career? And I think you hinted at that a little bit of understanding how to work different cultures. Would that be kind of one of the biggest benefits, or what's maybe 1 or 2 of the biggest benefits of having that diverse background?


[00:09:14] Guest: Joel Steendam: I think the cultural differences are helpful when you're working with people from a different country. That's kind of a more straightforward one. But I also think, like growing up with people that think really differently than you or look really different than you can be really helpful also in understanding how other people think and act because like again, I guess going back to kind of what I said earlier about spreadsheets, that if I'm working in Excel, which is a lot of what I do, trying to understand not the ideal way to build up a model, but how to build up a model or suggest build up a model for someone that could actually work for them so that they can not only go in and fill in some data in sheet A and get the output in sheet B, but actually understand why a spreadsheet is giving a certain output. People are at different levels in that sense, not necessarily that their intellectual capacities are different or something like that. Some have less time to dive into Excel or to understand how the program works, stuff like that. I think meeting people where they're at is a big part of connecting culturally, but also connecting kind of with things like building a spreadsheet, for example.


[00:10:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I really like that kind of even bring that into building a spreadsheet. So let's talk about your job today. You work for PerfectXL. And I know you wear many different hats, but at the end of the day, the company your focus is all about helping people be better with Excel. So what are some of the ways you do that? How do you do that?


[00:10:35] Guest: Joel Steendam: Well, I think I mean, the biggest business model for PerfectXL is just the fact that we sell software. So I think it's kind of ingrained in our software that idea. I mean, we started as a project from a university as well, but it was really a really a research to look at how spreadsheets are built up and try to do that across industry as well. So rather than saying, hey, this is a profit and loss statement, for example, what can we say about profit and loss statements that will help mitigate the risk in this specific industry or in this area? We were trying to look at what consistent variables do we see across different industries that use Excel that might hint at good or bad quality when it comes to modeling? And I think those core concepts that are kind of core, not just one industry or one user, but really core to the software itself, do strongly hint at best practice use of Excel, I think. So in the development of software to try to mitigate risks in Excel, we definitely have developed a sort of set of principles and best practices around Excel modeling that really try to encourage people to build better models from the start. And so a big part of that is the software. On the other hand, I do love going to events, speaking at events. I'll be at the Global Excel Summit in February as well in a couple of weeks. So I love sort of just speaking about Excel in a general sense. We also have a course on Coursera about best practices and pitfalls of Excel modeling. And I do just speaking at different companies and stuff like that around. Yeah, producing better models and what that looks like for the specific industry or workplace that certain people are in. So I guess it's pretty much those two sides practically just training and speaking on the topic. And then also our software really has that sort of underlying academic idea around what does a good model look like.


[00:12:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, we'll get a little bit more into that as we go. Quick question. So Excel Summit. So are you speaking at the Global Excel Summit or just a participant this year?


[00:12:19] Guest: Joel Steendam: This year I'm just a participant. A couple of years ago I did speak at the event as well. But I'm just joining in. I'm along for the ride, I think.


[00:12:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So I've been hanging out with all those good Excel nerds.


[00:12:29] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, and it's good to balance that out as well. I think if you're constantly only going to events as a speaker it's not really the attitude that I want to have towards others or towards Excel either. I think constantly having that sort of attitude and that feeling of wanting to learn and understand what other people think about the subject and what kinds of things are moving in the space. I think there's a lot of value in that. So if I want to speak at an event, I also really want to be able to go to events that I'd like to participate in.


[00:12:56] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yes, I totally understand. I really enjoy getting to spend a few days listening. When I was at the Financial Modeling World Cup versus.


[00:13:06] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, yeah.


[00:13:08] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Training or anything. I was attending that. It was good. It's a really good experience. If you get a chance, I recommend it. It's a fun, fun event.


[00:13:15] Guest: Joel Steendam: I watched a little bit of it. I loved Oz and Giles, their commentary and everything. It's a lot of fun to experience, but it would be great to be there live sometime as well.


[00:13:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. Oz and Giles are great, I did. So funny enough, and I've talked about this a little bit. The video I think drops potentially today. So Giles, does the show called Excel on the road a little YouTube series? He does, and he did one for our trip. So he came in from London to Salt Lake. Oz drove up from Vegas to Salt Lake, and we all drove down together and recorded the whole thing. We had a videographer follow us and turned it into a little video. Yeah. It's fun. There's. The trailer's already out there. It was. Giles posted it on his LinkedIn page. Like a little 42nd trailer. I believe the full video drops today or tomorrow. So anyway, so it was a lot of fun being in the car with the two of them there.


[00:14:11] Guest: Joel Steendam: For sure. For sure. With their characters. No doubt about that. I've had the pleasure of working with both of them separately.


[00:14:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So yeah, they're both great. Well, you know, learning Excel obviously, and trying to help people be better with Excel. One of the ways you do that is training, as you mentioned, teaching. And it's been several years now since Excel went to the subscription model. Anyone who's as old as I am can remember, oh, you have Excel 2008 or 20 16 or 2010 or whatever version. And now the updates just keep coming right? With the subscription model, there's something every month, and sometimes there's a new formula every month, and they're in beta and there's all these different channels. I mean, honestly, I think it's partly my job to stay up to date and I struggle. So what would you tell people of how do you stay current and really take advantage of a software that's just constantly changing?


[00:15:04] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm in the same boat as you, I think, in the sense that it's part of my job is just to stay up to date on Excel and the new features and the functions and everything. I think what really helps me is not necessarily one specific thing. I mean, I could suggest a bunch of YouTube channels or a blog or something like that, but more just a general sense of excitement or curiosity about the program. So if I can block like 10 or 15 minutes every week just to try something in Excel I'd never done before, or if I see a new button pop up, I'll reserve a little spot in my calendar just to go click on that button. I just want to see what the button does. I'll open a blank spreadsheet. Whatever it is. I think that sort of childlike excitement or excitement or curiosity comes quite naturally to me. Maybe, but it's something that I really advise people to do make time to just play with the thing that you work in all day, because that makes your work more enjoyable, because you're excited to try this new feature in the next model you build, or whatever it might be, and it helps you stay up to date with stuff. I mean, if you're still using Vlookup or you have sort of your set way of doing things and you stick to that because it works, then you're missing so many of the new functions and the ideas that Excel is bringing to the table to make your life easier. So just stay curious. You know, like Excel posts their sort of updates and blogs and stuff. Reading that stuff can be a little bit boring, but if you just spend a little bit of time playing in Excel, try to do something you've always done a certain way, a different way, see if there's another way to accomplish it. I think you learn so much from that sort of playing and experimenting process, even if it's not the most time efficient method to learn.


[00:16:34] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Sure. And one thing I really love that you said there is curiosity. I ask people on FP&A Tomorrow to kind of give one last piece of advice to be a better business partner in FP&A. And almost half the time it feels like I get that answer. Be curious. I think that so applies to Excel, because if you're curious and willing to learn, you'll discover new things that make you more efficient. And it doesn't need to be a one time. Like I said, maybe it's 15 minutes a week. Maybe it's 15 minutes a day. Maybe you have someone's channel you follow or a blog. There's plenty of different ways you can do it, but it's be curious and be willing to experiment and learn, I think are huge. Yeah, I'm with you.


[00:17:17] Guest: Joel Steendam: That I think that curiosity is such a strong motivator as well to go and try something new. So kind of intentionally adopting that attitude of curiosity is a really cool way, not just to learn new stuff, but also to have more fun in that learning process, because it can be a slog, right?


[00:17:34] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. I mean, I think it's fun to learn new stuff, but I still remember I was interviewing a guy and I asked him, you know, about how he goes about learning new stuff. He's like, be honest, I don't like learning new stuff. Like, I'm just getting ready to consider hiring you and you're going to be learning a bunch of new stuff and went on to explain why. And it was like, all right, you crossed yourself off the list. Like you don't like learning new stuff. There's you got to know how to manage an interview. But it was pretty cool because it made it really easy for me to narrow down the list. All right. When people ask you for advice, you know, on learning Excel, not even necessarily keeping up, but just kind of in general, do you have a place you typically tell someone to start? Let's say they're fairly basic in Excel. You know, they've used it a little bit. They know some, maybe they know Vlookup, maybe they don't. But they're early in their journey, right? They played with it a little bit, but by no means are they experienced in Excel. Do they really, you know, realize its power.


[00:18:33] Guest: Joel Steendam: Really good question. I think. I mean, there's tons of resources out there, I think, for learning how to use Excel and use Excel. Well, I wouldn't dare to say a lot of the resources are very good. I guess I'm on a lot of learning platforms, things like Coursera and Udemy and things like that. There's a lot of the sort of click-baity here. In two hours you become an expert in Excel. I don't totally think that exists.


[00:18:56] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I will say it exists. We'll just put it out there. Nobody's going to be an expert in two hours a day.


[00:19:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: A week, a month. I don't know if there really is an expert in Excel. When you talk of everything in Excel that truly could be considered an expert, I'm not sure they exist.


[00:19:13] Guest: Joel Steendam: No, I mean, you have the MVP's, I mean yourself as well, right? Like there's there's people that are seen as very high level Excel users and, and very fairly so. But some of the MVP's that we work with as well, I ask them what percentage of functionality in Excel do you think? You know, they're usually like, well, like maybe 60, 65% on a good day I might know. And then, yeah, well, that's not even a passing grade in school. Right. So, definitely. I think an all rounded expert in Excel, but that doesn't necessarily exist that way.


[00:19:42] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I think I was going to go 30, 40%, so I completely failed.


[00:19:47] Guest: Joel Steendam: We keep learning. No, I think if someone's really, really basic level, like they've never touched Excel before, I would say the easiest way to learn Excel is to have a specific project that you're trying to work through. So try to create. If you don't have specifically for work, you have to learn Excel for something. Then try to think of some kind of case or a story around it that will help sort of lead the learning process as well. If you really don't know anything about Excel, I've seen some people actually get quite a bit of value from the sort of standard template files in Excel itself, in Excel, and you just go to file and you're going to open up a new blank template. You can also open like the formula breakdown thing that Excel has to offer. I've never gone through it all the way, and I do disagree with a few of the points that they give. But if someone's quickly trying to learn, if you're curious, click on that. You know, you'll learn a couple of formulas. You'll have a couple of specific test cases in Excel itself. You'll get a few of the basics down. And I would say step two is like with your use case in mind, really go in there and grab all of the data and all the information you think you'll need to reach the output that you want to get to.


[00:20:52] Guest: Joel Steendam: But as you're doing that, don't just pop a bunch of data in a sheet. Try to give everything a clear name or a clear place. So name your worksheets, name your ranges, create tables, your tables. You can give those names as well. Give your columns names. Try to sort of like tag all the information you're putting in this spreadsheet. Then look at the output that you want, even if it's a graph or something, draw it down and paint or set up a fake graph. If it's an output of some kind, write down what it is that you want. As a result, based on this sort of data that you've now gathered and collected and tagged and named well, and then from there sort of work backwards. You've got all the information you need in theory, you've got the output that you want. Finding those in-between steps can be super doable, even with the most simple formulas, but just break it up into little steps. I think if we watch a YouTube video where someone's explaining how to do something in one go.


[00:21:43] Guest: Joel Steendam: Often they're writing a relatively complex formula. If you're working with things like some ifs or you've got like a filter or an xlookup that's doing some kind of unique selection out of it, there really cool stuff. But you're not going to learn the basics of intrinsic modeling that way. So I would suggest break it up into as many parts as possible. One cell, one function, even do a sum here, and then do an average of those sums, and then do an if statement. If you have to do an if statement, do that afterwards, and you just break it up into its logical parts. And then as you get more experience, you can kind of start to put a couple of those pieces back together. But I'd say the two most important things when you're learning to work with Excel is know exactly what you've got to start with, label it, give it a place, understand what you have, and know exactly where you want to get to. So try to get your output in place. Think about what you want as your output, and then sort of the calculations in between will fall into place as long as long as you have a basic understanding of how formula work.


[00:22:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, it basically starts with knowing what you want to accomplish. Have some good design and structure principles to it, because at the end of the day, as I like to say, design matters. And I built my share of Franken models so I can speak to a laptop now and then kind of break it apart and start small and learn. I think that's great because the best way we all learn is by getting our hands dirty.


[00:22:59] Guest: Joel Steendam: Absolutely. And I think I guess the biggest part of that is to try to keep each individual thing as simple as possible. I think especially like very, very basic users don't struggle with this as much. But as soon as you learn a few formulas, that kind of whole I see a lot of people fall into is to make their formulas much more complex than their current understanding level. And if you build something on Monday that you don't understand on Wednesday, you're not building the right thing on Monday. That's kind of like the point I like to make. So keep it dummy proof for yourself as well. On Monday, build something that is easy to read and understand so that on Wednesday, when you come back to it, you can continue on that sort of same track and that same trajectory.


[00:23:38] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I think we've all been there where you open it up and you've written some formula and you're looking at it going, what does this do? And it only magnifies when it's somebody else's formula that when their workbook is I like to say, what do you call a broken spreadsheet? You know, we call a broken spreadsheet. I don't. The intern's problem.


[00:23:56] Guest: Joel Steendam: It's good that it's painful because it happens genuinely. It is often the interim problem. And that is not the place you want to put this spreadsheet that you're calculating. Your return on investment of a $10 billion investment for your company. Somehow those are easy.


[00:24:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Into something that actually is important that you're making decisions on. But yeah, we do. So you talk a little bit how PerfectXL does a lot of software. So talk a little bit more. What kind of software are you doing? What's the resources that help people build better models? Maybe just tell a little bit of what those are.


[00:24:30] Guest: Joel Steendam: Again I guess PerfectXL score is software with kind of four core functions, and those core four functions come together to form a sort of suite, and we like to call it a sort of audit or a model validation suite, I guess. So the core underlying principle of our software is simply that we're trying to provide software tools that help people audit and validate models to make them better. So to eliminate risks, mitigate risks, whatever you want to call it, but also to be able to build and develop better models yourself. That's kind of those two ends of the spectrum. You've got people and send it to somebody that's checking the model needs to make their life easier, and it needs to make the life easier of the person actually building and developing the model. Because I guess kind of the underlying idea is we think Excel is a really powerful tool, but Excel itself doesn't invest enough of its resources into providing sort of data and quality and consistency checks, which allows potentially for a little bit too much freedom for the average modeler to be able to do whatever they want. And we kind of want to give tools to help people understand what's actually going on in those.


[00:25:31] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So is that the reason why Excel alone is not enough? Right? They have trace dependents. They have compatibility. They do checks. They now have see your formula history. So they've done a few things. But you know why. Why is that not enough for the average user in your mind.


[00:25:50] 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.


[00:26:55] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, I think that Excel is gearing your software as much as possible to the average Excel user. And I think what we maybe sometimes in the finance space miss, is that the average Excel user also uses Excel to build a shopping list or keeps track of the people they invited to their party, or like a very simple database file. So I guess the average usage of Excel isn't these really complex financial, difficult to understand formulas. So it also makes sense to some degree that the sort of poor package of Excel doesn't necessarily contain tools or applications that help at the sort of high end level of Excel. So if you're really calculating retirement investments or you're estimating costs and expenses, you're doing PNL statements and you're sort of at that upper echelon of Excel user, I guess you could say, which in our world the basic users are already at the upper echelon of Excel. You kind of from a worldwide perspective, it makes sense that if you're sort of at that peak capability within the Excel space, that you need a different level of tools to be able to check and validate those models as well.


[00:28:01] Guest: Joel Steendam: But I think it's maybe not in Excel's best interest to over index on these kinds of tools. And yeah, I think we try to make our tools sit as closely as possible to how Excel functions. Excel also really encourages a sort of marketplace of providers to be providing these kinds of applications. I think they really like the idea that a lot of different developers from different areas and ideas, I mean, just to name a few, like something like Zebra BI make some beautiful visuals that you can apply in Excel as well. Not affiliated to them at all. Never have used the software extensively myself. See some of the stuff they do. I think it's super cool and I think Excel yeah, just doesn't invest the same amount of time into each specific part because they created this very broad toolkit that can do so many different things. Right. So I think if you're really specialized in something, then it is helpful to have more specialized tools. And I think the risk level of the average financial model is just a lot higher than the average shopping list or sort of simple thing built in Excel.


[00:28:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: But what if I get the wrong cookies?


[00:29:01] Guest: Joel Steendam: I think shopping lists also need perfecting, so that's kind of what it comes down to.


[00:29:08] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. I have to try that on a shopping list. No.


[00:29:11] Guest: Joel Steendam: I think.


[00:29:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: A good point. Right. It's very clear Excel welcomes the developer community, as does Google Sheets as well. And you can build a lot of applications on top of it. Thousands, probably tens of thousands in different ways, whether they're add-ins or, you know, their own product that integrates with Excel or has an add-in or whatever it might be, because there's so many different use cases. And, you know, Excel wants to build the most flexible, usable spreadsheet in the world.


[00:29:47] Guest: Joel Steendam: Absolutely.


[00:29:48] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And then allow it to be used for thousands of purposes. I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen the guy in Japan that made a living off doing artwork in Excel.


[00:29:57] Guest: Joel Steendam: Gorgeous, beautiful.


[00:29:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. Really impressive stuff. Right? I'm getting ready to interview a guy by the name of Tom Hinkle for a different podcast I have. And he built minesweeper using ChatGPT in Excel.


[00:30:11] Guest: Joel Steendam: I've played with. I've played his minesweeper version in Excel.


[00:30:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I have to, I like, wasted an hour one day reliving my childhood.


[00:30:19] Guest: Joel Steendam: That's great.


[00:30:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Maybe even longer. It was quite fun, but I'm like, am I really doing this? You know, like, I probably could work, but. Yeah. So. Right. You name it, it can pretty much be done within reason, obviously.


[00:30:33] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah. I mean, that's exactly what you're saying. I think the power of Excel as well, is that anything that you can sort of imagine can be done in Excel. But I think in the sort of financial spaces where you're dealing with money made, investments, all that kind of stuff, we should sort of encourage each other to limit a little bit the possibilities of Excel in a way. So having some tools that very simply show where potentially something's going wrong, it's not even hard like this is wrong. This is not going to work. If you've got our tools, it's just purely giving a little bit more insight into things like that structure that we talked about earlier, highlighting areas that might potentially be causing an issue, checking for things like consistency, the stuff most financial modelers want their spreadsheets to look like. It's helpful to have tools that sort of help encourage those best practices and give just a little bit. Yeah, an easier way to approach that process.


[00:31:22] Host: Paul Barnhurst: No, I agree. And one way one way. I think about it. You know, I talk to a lot of FP&A software providers which are building modeling tools at the end of the day. And as I like to say, you know, Excel spreadsheets always have a place in every company's tech stack. But does that mean you should be using them for everything? Right. A lot of these tools have been built to bring in a lot of the structure you're talking about automatically. As I get, people ask me all the time, like, I want to get a planning tool and I want it to be as flexible as Excel. I'm like, well, then don't get a planning tool.


[00:31:54] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, then get Excel.


[00:31:56] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Because if flexibility is really the most important thing to you, just stay in Excel. If you can handle the downfalls of having nearly unlimited flexibility, let's talk because you're going to trade one thing for another. And I think that's what a lot of people sometimes don't understand. Right. That's kind of the double edged sword of Excel. It's the beauty and it's also the frustration. Sometimes when you're like, I always had this guy that you could tell he was a programmer and a coder because he would always write his formulas, kind of coding like, and they were different than I would always write them, so it always took me a while. He was one of my employees to figure out what he was doing in his formula, because he just thought differently, and the way he'd write every, even basic formulas. I was like, why did you do it that way? And it's like using Boolean. Boolean logic or whatever. That comes more from kind of his coding experience.


[00:32:45] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, different thought processes.


[00:32:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And it culminates pretty much all of them are right. So do you have a favorite functionality in the software you guys offer? Is there something that's kind of your go to that you're like, I couldn't live without this in Excel.


[00:33:00] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit like asking to pick like a favorite child or pet, something that everybody clearly knows which one it is. But you're not supposed to say it out loud, I guess is kind of the.


[00:33:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I'll tell you. My favorite child is I have one, so it's really easy. Her name is. Hey.


[00:33:17] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah. You're cheating, I get it. No, I mean, I think, our company was built originally around being able to detect risk in Excel models and now sort of case by case view in the risk finder. That functionality that shows an actual screenshot of the issue where it's going on a little bit more context. What exactly is going wrong in this case? For example, if you've got like a sum that's calculating over a part of a range of cells, it suggests that maybe the other cells should be included as well. With a little bit of advice on how to potentially resolve the issue and the possibility to jump directly to it, I love that little overview because it just feels really clear, easy to explain to someone and sort of at all levels of Excel, you see people that are like, oh, this is really helpful to be able to quickly jump to and understand what's going wrong. I like it.


[00:33:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. So now I'm going to ask you to pick another favorite child here.


[00:34:03] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah. Favorite shortcut. It's a painful one. I think it's something that's asked on almost every interview, podcast, all this kind of stuff. I've thought about it a decent amount, I think, like just very simply the one that I use all the time that some people don't know about is control or control shift and the arrows to be able to jump to the edges of a range. I don't even know if that fully counts, but people don't know that it exists. It saves you a lot of time. It saves so much time selecting ranges and stuff. The other one I would say is control T, because you can insert tables just by going to insert table, but sometimes it's easier for people to understand that control T does the same thing, because anything that looks like a table, I think it's not in every case, definitely not in every case. But often creating tables in your Excel makes it a lot easier to understand what's going on in the data. It makes references more readable, and it's really quick and easy way to give a little bit more structure to the information.


[00:34:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'll give an amen to that one all day long to tables, right? It's funny I asked Ken that question. He's like control T, but not Excel's control T. He's like my monkey. Tools. Control T.


[00:35:09] Guest: Joel Steendam: That's cheating.


[00:35:10] Host: Paul Barnhurst: His is designed. When you hit control T, it creates the table and requires you to name it.


[00:35:16] Guest: Joel Steendam: Oh, smart. That's nice. I was thinking about it today as well. Is all I was thinking. Wouldn't it be better if Excel just had a pop up? Even one that you can click away that has the pre-selected name of the table? That would be fine if it just popped up in screen for a second with like, hey, this is the name of your table. If you want to change it, you can just select table one and type something else in. I don't think it would negatively impact a lot of people's experience, and it does make it easier than going over the table design and thrilled.


[00:35:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: To have it.


[00:35:42] Guest: Joel Steendam: It'd be great.


[00:35:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: The other one that he has that you'll laugh about is he actually replaces Merge Center with center across selection. Yeah.


[00:35:49] Guest: Joel Steendam: That's great. I've seen a lot of posts.


[00:35:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It changes depending on whether it's British or American. So center is spelled different depending on your local settings anyway. Total nerd part. If anyone's still listening at this point sorry.


[00:36:04] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, apologies. It is what it is. You are listening.


[00:36:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: At this point, I'm going to assume you're a nerd as well, so it's probably all good.


[00:36:11] Guest: Joel Steendam: Welcome to the group.


[00:36:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: What's the funniest thing or most unique thing you've ever built in Excel? Craziest.


[00:36:17] Guest: Joel Steendam: Craziest thing? I don't know, I don't know if. Stephanie. I really like to play a card game called UPS and Downs with my family. And the point system is a little bit annoying to write out because for each, like, you deal a different amount of cards each round, so it's sort of a scaling number of cards. And then for each round, you guess how many hands you will win out of that set of cards. So if there's eight cards, I'm guessing at the beginning I'll probably win three based on the cards that I have in my hand. If I'm correct, I get a score based on the number that I get, and if I'm incorrect, I'll get a minus point based on how far off I was from my original guess. So it's a little bit of an annoying thing mathematically, because you get like the square root of what you got correct, or you get minus some kind of complex thing. Too hard. It's really fun. The game itself is really fun, but keeping track of the scores is a little bit annoying. So I built it in Excel, which in and of itself is I mean, it's kind of fun that it increases, you can check how many rounds you're going to play, who needs to deal at what time, how many cards you're playing with, all that kind of stuff. But the annoying thing was, I built it in Excel 2016 on a MacBook with semi-colons as the delimiter instead of commas, because it was somebody else's computer that I was working on, and that was mind bogglingly frustrating and miserable because it was also in Dutch, the language settings. So like everything I tried to do from dynamic arrays don't work in Excel 2016. You're trying to type out your commas to separate the different arguments. It doesn't work because of the semicolon delimiter. So it took me a while, but we got there in the end.


[00:37:49] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Just say no to Mac and Excel.


[00:37:51] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. 100% agree, but I needed a spreadsheet to calculate this stuff.


[00:37:56] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So this is a public service announcement brought to you by Paul and Joel. Peter. Yay!


[00:38:03] Guest: Joel Steendam: Stop it! No more Mac.


[00:38:06] Host: Paul Barnhurst: P and J. Just say no when it comes to Mac and Excel. Right on. Pb and J.


[00:38:12] Guest: Joel Steendam: Pb and J. Great. Just to Mac and Excel PC only. All right. I have a lot of friends to get.


[00:38:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: A lot of angry people sending me a note.


[00:38:22] Guest: Joel Steendam: Nah, it is what it is. I have a lot of friends that work with pictures and videos and stuff. If you're using Mac, completely fine. Just if you're working with Excel consistently, use windows, please. I promise it'll make your life better.


[00:38:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You're not going to get any disagreement from me. All right. We're going to move into rapid fire. So I'm going to lay the ground rules here. You can't say. It depends. You don't get to elaborate on the answers. It's just a quick one or the other. So, you know, circular references. It's a yes or no. Then at the end, you can pick a few that you're most passionate about and elaborate a little bit because I realize there's nuance to all of these. Everybody. So are you ready?


[00:39:03] Guest: Joel Steendam: It's good. Let's go.


[00:39:04] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Circular references. Yes or no? No VBA yes or no?


[00:39:10] Guest: Joel Steendam: No.


[00:39:11] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Do you prefer horizontal? By horizontal I mean lots of lots of sheets are vertical, kind of building it all in one sheet with schedules horizontal. All right. Excel dynamic arrays in your model. Yes or no?


[00:39:23] Guest: Joel Steendam: Absolutely. Yes.


[00:39:25] Host: Paul Barnhurst: How about fully dynamic array models?


[00:39:29] Guest: Joel Steendam: No.


[00:39:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. That you can elaborate on that one. There's a lot of debate about that one right now. External workbook.


[00:39:39] Guest: Joel Steendam: No. External workbook least. Yes. Power query.


[00:39:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: But yeah, I had someone else say the same thing and I agree. Named ranges. We talked about this. Yes. In moderation probably. Yeah. All right. For the modeling, do you follow like any of the formal standards like fast or Smart or some of the others out there?


[00:39:57] Guest: Joel Steendam: This one really is. It depends. I love guidelines. I don't follow standards strictly to the letter. So.


[00:40:05] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You know, when I'm with you, I'm more of a guideline than, hey, follow these standards. Should we learn Python in Excel as financial modelers.


[00:40:14] Guest: Joel Steendam: I haven't learned it yet. So it's really hard for me to answer this question. I'm going to say yes.


[00:40:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. How about Power Query?


[00:40:22] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yes, absolutely.


[00:40:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Power BI.


[00:40:25] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah.


[00:40:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Is Excel ever going to die?


[00:40:29] Guest: Joel Steendam: Not anytime soon.


[00:40:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Fair enough. Will I build the models for us in the future?


[00:40:35] Guest: Joel Steendam: No, I think not all models.


[00:40:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay. That's a fair answer.


[00:40:41] Guest: Joel Steendam: Okay.


[00:40:42] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So do you believe financial models are the number one corporate decision making tool?


[00:40:47] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah, I think so.


[00:40:49] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay. And then what's your lookup function of choice? Your favorite lookup function. I'm not going to give you the list. Just let me know.


[00:40:55] Guest: Joel Steendam: A strict lookup function Xlookup. But filter is like kind of close I will.


[00:41:01] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Count as a lookup function I get. It's a database lookup function in many ways.


[00:41:06] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah. And in theory you use it for a lot of the same use cases. So yeah I think filter.


[00:41:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. That works. You're not the first one that says that. Mark Proctor gave me filter as well. I would agree. Among good Excel nerds. All right. 1 or 2 you want to elaborate on. I know you wanted to throw in. Plenty of it depends in there. So. Yeah.


[00:41:26] Guest: Joel Steendam: I would love to throw plenty of it depends, I think. I mean, the first two circular or no circular references and VBA or no VBA, I think there's very specific cases where it's okay to use them. But as a general rule across the board I'd be generally against them. So that's why I said no. For both of those, that's just a little bit more elaboration, I guess on the formal standards and guidelines thing. I think something like Fast standards is something we reference in our risk manager as well. But the issue with standards is I think they sometimes claim to be the end all, be all. And so I guess that's what you're also saying in terms of principles like the ICW has 20 general principles for good practice. I love those principles. Yeah. Because I think they also encourage you. You can say it's okay to break a principle every once in a while, right? That's just the way a principal feels. But it does encourage a different perspective when it comes to Excel modeling.


[00:42:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Well said. You really hesitated on fully dynamic array models. Elaborate a little bit there. I'll ask you to elaborate on that one.


[00:42:25] Guest: Joel Steendam: I think there are contexts where it's okay to use Excel as a sort of front end, if that makes sense. So in some IT teams or departments, some people are just filling in data and they need their output and that's all they're going to do. And then you do have a professional Excel modeler or an IT that's developing a model for those people. I think in that case a fully dynamic model is fine. I think models that are evolving over time and are being sort of developed by more than one person, or it's something that you're making changes to as you go. Probably fully dynamic models are not the easiest to understand and modify as you go, because the formulas get a lot more complicated. So the efficiency gain you get maybe in the initial build or for the person developing the model originally is loss on the back end because just the readability goes down a bit. So yeah, I've seen some really good fully dynamic models and I've seen some really bad, fully dynamic models.


[00:43:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So yeah, I think there's two things. And you know, a lot of people are like, hey, when are we going to get the fully dynamic models? And I think there's really two ways you can do it. Complex lambdas, if you have corkscrews and things like that, or you're dealing with complex algebra and math, some people will solve it mathematically, most will solve it through complex lambdas. And some of those lambdas have complex math in them. So there's you know, and I think until they solve that and make that part simpler, I wouldn't recommend it to most people. I agree with you. Maybe some back end. I know there are some firms that there's one I know in UK they're doing 100% dynamic models. Me personally, I'm like you, I'm not there yet.


[00:43:59] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah. Me too. And it could, it could really be that my own skill level was maybe just not there yet. In theory. Right. It could be.


[00:44:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: My skill level isn't there yet, so I get it.


[00:44:11] Guest: Joel Steendam: But worked a bit with the lesson lambdas. But I think it just gets out of hand, right? And I think in general the dynamic skill ranges again when used well, incredible. Like having a few spilled formulas across your model, pulling in sort of a filter or a subset of something is fine, but I've seen several models where they did both, so they would kind of calculate things out, they'd have their heart values, and then they'd be pulling in full filter ranges on every subsequent sheet. And referring back to that. It becomes such a convoluted mess because your cell references are no longer referencing something specific, right? So a filter that references a range, and in that range something is calculated, and then you're referring back to that filter on the back end somewhere. You're losing sort of that clean flow of where's the information coming from. What substantiates this. And it just makes the model perform worse.


[00:44:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I mean, and you get the same even if you're not doing dynamic where you reference, you're not referencing back to the source. Much easier to do with dynamic filtering, but if you write your formulas right, you can always go back to the source. Might get a little more complex, but it's going to be easier to follow. We're all guilty of it sometimes, though. Oh, the data's here. I'll just take this subset, and before you know it, you got a Daisy formula. And the auditor hates you.


[00:45:24] Guest: Joel Steendam: You're 20 deep, and you've got no idea where the information comes from yourself. But, yeah.


[00:45:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I've been guilty of it, so I think that's a good point. And I think that definitely a lot of that can be solved through design. But at the same time, you know, dynamic arrays, even if you can solve a lot of it through design, I don't think they're there for mass adoption.


[00:45:46] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah I agree.


[00:45:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Well, we're kind of on wrap up here. So I'm going to give you a second before I have one more question. I want to ask you any questions you want to ask me anything you want to put me on the spot for before we wrap up?


[00:46:01] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah. I mean, I really liked your first question in terms of what's the worst model you've run into? Are there any? Yeah. I guess recurring things that you see come back in the models you're running across that make you want to rip your hair out or frustration always sells well, right?


[00:46:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So I think the worst model I dealt with was really around a commission model. And the guy who did it did a great job. He was early in his career and he hadn't been taught design principles, and his process was taking him like two weeks to do. And it was super complex. Tons of different plans, you know, tons of one offs. And when I inherited it, you know, I got some instructions on it. There were things like, you know, sort this and highlight the first 50 blue, not even tell you what way to sort it and why. And there are hard coded numbers in multiple places, you know, repeating stuff, finding things that were wrong. And it was a really long process to kind of convert and fix all that. And so that was probably the most frustrating model I dealt with. And it was multiple models and files, but it was calculating 100 people sales commissions. And that was just a complete mess. Copying and pasting and that kind of thing.


[00:47:15] Guest: Joel Steendam: Those files can get really convoluted. And then I guess the other thing you said I wear quite a few hats. I guess currently what you're doing for work also is kind of quite diverse and spread out. You have sort of one aspect of what you currently do for a living that you most enjoy.


[00:47:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Great, great question. If I was to sum them up one. I love doing podcasts. It's fun to interview people, so I would say there's probably 2 or 3 things. So one, I love interviewing, I love training people and more seeing when they're like, hey, what you did helped me. Yeah, they actually take it and benefit from it. And then third, I love meeting with startups. I get to talk to a lot of software startups, and that's just fun to see what they're exploring and talk to them about their journey. I mean, I've talked to over 100 software companies, so if I was going to say and you can see those all have something in common. It's talking to people. It's those relationships. It's educating. But those three things are probably my favorite. Great.


[00:48:14] Guest: Joel Steendam: Good little subset.


[00:48:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. And I get to do a lot of them, sometimes more than I'd like. But that's another story that happens when you have three podcasts.


[00:48:23] Guest: Joel Steendam: A story for another time.


[00:48:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. All right. So if you could offer one piece of advice to our audience to be a better financial modeler. So not necessarily better in Excel but a better modeler. What's the one piece of advice you're going to give? And keep in mind, our audience is probably a little more knowledgeable than your average audience. I'd hope so.


[00:48:42] Guest: Joel Steendam: You'd hope so. You'd hope so.


[00:48:44] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I know, so I'm not going to insult my audience.


[00:48:49] Guest: Joel Steendam: It is what it is. I mean, I think I think we hinted at it or we talked about it quite a bit earlier as well. But I still think in pretty much any space that you're in, the number one advice would be to stay curious. I think that yeah, I think it's something you can do intentionally as well. I think maybe sometimes we think some people like learning new stuff and some people don't. I think you can become addicted to learning by doing it as well and learning how to learn well. So I think just staying curious, trying new things, being willing to try new things the right way as well. I think AI is one of those examples where people will learn AI for the sake of learning AI, and I think AI is super interesting as an innovation technique for very specific use cases or needs. And learning something generally about AI is okay as well, but just going ahead and just randomly starting to apply that in a bunch of places is probably not the best way. But be curious. Think about whatever process you're in. Is AI a good solution? Is there something that you could be doing more efficiently? Is there someone you could talk to about this? Is there someone you could learn more from? Stay curious.


[00:49:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So we'll go ahead and put your LinkedIn in the show notes and, you know, mention PerfectXL where you work so people can get in contact you if they want to ask more questions and we'll let you go before it gets dark. Oh, wait. Never mind. You're in. You're in the dark already.


[00:50:09] Guest: Joel Steendam: It's hopeless.


[00:50:10] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I can imagine. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Had a great time chatting with you, Joel. And enjoy the rest of your day.


[00:50:17] Guest: Joel Steendam: Yeah. Thank you so much for the interview and the podcast. Thanks.


[00:50:21] 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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