Financial Model Too Complex? 67 Tabs and Ozempic Finance

Two stories about a financial model too complex to understand. The first one I inherited. The second one I built myself.

67 Tabs

Kids are yelling it in hallways. Teachers are losing their minds. Dictionary.com made it the word of the year. Nobody knows what it means.

Nobody knows what it means?

I do. 67 tabs. One financial model. The kind that makes you question your career choices.

Nobody taught me financial modeling. I learned Excel by trial and error. Built hundreds of models. Broke hundreds more. Eventually became good enough to teach it to others.

And here’s what irritates me most about the craft:

The models that look the most sophisticated are usually the worst.

67 tabs. Color-coded everything. Formulas that stretch across the entire alphabet. Beautiful. Impressive. Completely f*cked.

I remember joining my current company. One of my first tasks was updating the financial model. Its original form had been built over years by the founder. I could clearly see that its original form was a work of art. But after multiple people, each adding their own logic, their own tabs, their own “improvements,” it had become a monster.

I swear to god, it was impossible to understand.

You try to trace precedents? Good luck. The formula references jumped across 12 tabs before landing on a hardcoded number someone typed in 2022.

You try to understand the logic? It’s buried under layers of links nobody documented. There was a tab called “OLD_DO NOT USE” that was still feeding half the P&L.

Hours later, you finally figure out what it’s doing.

And then you find the broken pieces.

The circular reference someone “fixed” by enabling iterative calculation and hoping for the best. The hidden tab that was supposed to update but hasn’t since Q3 of last year. The assumption that changed 6 months ago but lives on in cell P47, quietly destroying your forecast accuracy.

I ended up tasking my FP&A director to recreate it while I built an alternative model from scratch.

Three years later, my team is still using what I built for forecasting.

Now here’s where I might lose some of you.

I still build models. Regularly.

“Wait,” you’re thinking. “Isn’t the CFO role supposed to be strategic? Shouldn’t you have people for that?”

Honestly? Yes. The CFO role isn’t to build models. I have a team. They’re better at the mechanics than I am.

But I find it refreshing.

Modeling helps me understand the business. Not the high-level “we have three revenue streams” understanding. The real understanding. The one where you know exactly which assumptions drive the forecast, which levers actually move, which numbers are solid and which are wishes dressed up in formatting.

When I’m in a meeting with my CEO, I don’t have to look at my team. I know where it came from. I know what would change it. I know what we tested and what we didn’t. I can make changes real time.

That confidence doesn’t come from reviewing someone else’s work. It comes from building.

And honestly? It keeps my mind sharp.

Of course, my job isn’t to build Excel models 24/7. I decide what to do based on what needs me most.

Excel is my happy place.

I can spend hours in it. In flow. No Teams notifications pulling me out. No “quick questions” that take 45 minutes. Just logic, structure, and the satisfaction of watching a model come together.

Is that an efficient use of a CFO’s time? Probably not.

But it’s how I stay connected to the business. And in a role where it’s easy to become a meeting-attender instead of a business-understander, I’ll take every edge I can get.

Financial Model Too Complex? What Actually Works

The best financial models are boring. That’s the thing nobody tells you.

Start with an executive summary. One sheet that tells the whole story: key outputs, key assumptions, key sensitivities. If someone only has 5 minutes, this is all they need.

Keep assumptions with their calculations. Some people put all assumptions on page 1. I prefer them embedded in each calculation sheet. Revenue assumptions on the revenue tab. Cost assumptions on the cost tab. Context matters.

Hand your model to the newest person on the team. Can they follow it without asking questions? If not, simplify until they can. That’s the real test.

And for the love of god, no hardcoded numbers in formulas. If you see “=B5*1.15” you should ask what 1.15 means and why it’s not a named assumption. Every number has a story. Make it visible. We test all Finance team members with a business case. Hardcoded numbers is a deal breaker. If you have one, you’re out. That’s how strongly I feel about this.

Cool formulas are cool. But don’t overcomplicate it. Trace precedents and dependents is your friend, so don’t have thousands of references in a single formula. INDEX MATCH formulas are particularly bad at following what happened. If you can’t trace the logic in 10 seconds, simplify it.

Style matters too. Blue for inputs. Green for references. Black for calculations. Remove gridlines. Consistent font throughout. Substance is important. But substance without style is unnecessary friction. Clean and organized beats clever and messy.

And Then There’s AI

I’ve tried everything. ChatGPT. Claude. Shortcut AI. Copilot. Two weeks ago Claude released its Excel plugin for Max users. And honestly? It’s awesome.

But it won’t replace the analyst. Not yet.

It comes with all the usual AI limitations: hallucinations, errors, inconsistent outputs. Ask it the same question twice and you might get two different answers. However, when it works, it feels like magic.

AI is a force multiplier for the experienced modeler. It’s dangerous in the hands of someone who can’t spot when it’s wrong.

Use it. But verify everything.

The best models aren’t impressive. They’re obvious.

Ozempic Finance

Version 13 of a forecast model. 16 tabs.

I sat down to review it, and it had become so complex. Not broken. Not wrong. Just big, in a way I never decided to make it.

I’ve written about this before. In December, 67 Tabs was about a model I inherited, where years of other people’s logic had made it impossible to understand.

This time there was nobody to blame. Every tab was mine. If I’m honest, it’s laziness. Adding is easy. Cutting is work.

And it isn’t only an Excel problem. It’s the same everywhere. Investor presentations. Sales slides. Monthly reports. Newsletters.

I’ve started calling it Ozempic Finance.

Not Everyone Knows Simpler Is Better

I used to assume everyone did. They don’t.

Years ago I joined a large company I won’t name (wink wink, consumer goods). Once a month, a 100-page report went to the CFO. I kid you not. I doubt anyone ever decided it should be 100 pages. It got there one page at a time.

That’s how weight works. Nobody puts it on in one meal.

My model got heavy the same way. I wanted history, so a historical exhibit went in. Next period, another one. I wanted the statements cut a different way, so a second view went in, overlapping the first. Judged on its own, every addition passed.

A cold review called it out. Most of the weight was old history and the same statements shown two ways, not real calculations. Four tabs had zero formulas pointing at them. Nothing depended on them.

My decks do it too. An investor update I built this fall started at about a dozen slides. Five weeks and well over a hundred versions later, it was past 25. I cut the whole appendix before it went out. It shipped at 15.

AI Makes It So Much Worse

A new tab used to cost an afternoon. Now a tab, a slide or a chart costs one sentence. When adding is free, laziness wins.

And AI is lazy in its own way. Ask it for a report and you get eight sections, three caveats and a summary of the summary. I call it Claudish, and I hate it.

Now I get Claudish from sales, from operations, from my own team. And honestly, if I wanted a Claude report, I’d ask Claude myself. My agent is miles better than most (I know, not very humble).

I’ve caught it in my own work too. A report I built ended up with close to 40 charts. Each one was right. Together they were impossible to read.

So Go on a Diet

Here’s the journey. You start with something small. It grows. And most people leave it there.

Please don’t. Step out and look at it. Building it taught you what actually matters, so use that to cut it down. Make it managerial.

I give my team the same advice every time. Treat management like babies with no attention span. Not because they aren’t smart. Because they have so many decisions to make that they shouldn’t have to think to read a report.

Here’s mine. The model went from 16 tabs to 12. The investor deck went from past 25 slides to 15. The 40-chart report went out with less than half.

Nothing in the model pointed at the four tabs that came out, so nothing broke when they left. That’s the part that bugs me. I kept carrying them, and they were holding up nothing.

Simpler was never the hard part. Staying simple is.

What’s the heaviest thing you’ve built yourself, not inherited?

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