AJzer posted:

Hey! Programmers over in the Cavern of COBOL have no idea what I'm talking about when I discuss deep excel financial models! Go figure...

So here's some questions for anyone using Excel for complex modeling: What do you do when your model gets too big for Excel? Specifically, I'm getting into some ridiculous lookup tables, nested conditionals 3 deep, and 100x5000 cell-count worksheets (x6) that just need to be pushed into a database.

So what kind of solutions are out there using MS products and/or free ones? The theoretical underpinnings for my needs are pretty basic: linear regression and simple algebra, so Excel can handle the manipulations and reporting just fine. It's breaking every formula when you need to make a small change, and waiting 30 minutes to load a Workbook that I'm hoping to change.

I'm more proficient with the theory than the tools, but I'm not afraid to learn some scripting (Powershell, possibly VB), basic SQL or Access use, etc. Any wonks out there have suggestions?