How to Create a Documentation for Macros in Excel

Macros in Excel can cause confusion and can lead to questions by our customers, as many customers are not familiar with Macros in Excel. Please keep in mind that most users are looking for help in solving their financial planning problems in an easy way and by understanding how things work.

The first concern is that Marcos may contain harmful content. Nobody wants to have any risk and people first need to trust your Macros.

The second concern relates to the knowledge of MS Excel. Users can easily be overwhelmed when they have to deal with Macros in Excel the first time as they will not understand how the Macros work and how it will affect their software. For this reason, many users prefer Excel files without Macros.

The third issue is that when users want to edit and rework a template, their changes/modifications can get them into conflicts with Macros, which may lead that the main model stops working correctly.

To avoid potential frustrations, it is very important to anticipate the most likely problems users might have with Macros and provide the best possible transparency on what kind of Macros are used in an Excel Template.

Therefore, for every Excel Model Template submitted, which contains Macros, an explanatory document (Word, PowerPoint, or PDF) needs to be added as an additional document together with the submitted Excel Model Template containing Macro(s).

To create documentation for all Macros used in your financial model template, the Macro document file will need to answer and explain the following 3 main questions:

  1. Why do you need this Macro?
  2. What does the Macro exactly do and how exactly?
  3. Where can you find the Macro in the template?

It will be necessary to include screenshots in the Macro documentation so users can better understand how the Macro works, where to locate the Macro, and potentially disable it (if not wished to use).

Please feel free to Contact us if you have any further questions.