Like many others reading this, I tinker with a bit of DIY around the home, or in my case the farm. I start out by saying how easy the task is to complete. I set off, tool box in hand, full of optimism. Typically cries of anguish soon arise from the scene of what looks like a massacre. I can be found roaring like a lost heifer: “You just need the right effing tool for the job.” On really bad days, I can even be found kicking out.
Now when it comes to that inspired son of Lotus 123 that has profoundly changed the world, namely spreadsheets, the coding and searching also needs a tool box. The right tools for the job. Google solutions and AI can also help. For instance, you can upload the image of that spreadsheet and ask it to find the correct formulas for you to use. Awesome. But multiple data input is more of a challenge. Fat finger error, saving previous versions and errors in submissions from various locations, to be merged into multiple tabs and you will soon be calling out for “The right tool for the job.” With the volume of data compliance demands, including integrations, csv uploads and API pull throughs, you need systems to build any scale of practice beyond the mom and pop show.
When BAT was first conceived, with a young physics graduate called Phil, I too begged him not to take me away from my beloved spreadsheets. “Charlie, you can have your spreadsheets, but not for uploading data, only for download” and pointing to his diagram, “Enter the data into the top of the pyramid, and the spreadsheets come out at the bottom here.”
I have so much to thank Phil for, but he emigrated – the Far East swallowed him up. 20 years later and the spreadsheet remains our best recruiting tool, and when brokers and IFAs try to grow scale on CSVs, they too are soon in a bloody massacre, shouting out for “The right tool for the job!”
Charlie Palmer, CEO