Vision BI Case Study: Advanced Excel 3-Way Modelling for a National Building Products Group

What Actually is Excel 3-Way Modelling?

An Excel three-way model is a financial model that links a business’s profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and cashflow statement into one integrated forecasting tool. This provides businesses with a dynamic, interlinked tool that connects a company’s three core financial statements. When you connect these three separate reports, it allows business to project financial performance, understand how operational decisions may impact cash flow/profitability, test scenarios and provide a litmus to a company’s overall financial wellbeing.

Our Approach

Instead of introducing more software, we focused on a practical solution suited to their environment. In this case, Excel offered the most effective outcome.

We built a tailored financial model that could:

• Import raw data directly from NetSuite exports through a simple copy paste process.
• Map accounts flexibly to the relevant sections of the financials.
• Generate rolling 12 month views of a complete 3-Way Model (Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement).
• Present outputs with clear graphs highlighting cash, net asset, and profitability trends.

The model was structured into three sections:

• Inputs: raw data ingestion.
• Assumptions: mapping, parameters, and business drivers.
• Outputs: locked reporting pages to ensure consistency and integrity.

Robust validation was built in at every stage. Flags were triggered for unusual results, such as negative cash balances or mismatched balance sheet totals. A dedicated “Check” page brought all alerts together and linked directly to the source of the issue, allowing errors to be identified and corrected quickly.

Why Excel?

Generic forecasting tools such as Fathom or Castaway can be powerful, but they impose rigid structures and generic drivers. By building from a clean slate in Excel, we delivered a model tailored to the client’s actual needs. Forecasting was based on their real business drivers rather than averages. Importantly,  the team benefited from working in a tool they already knew, which in-turn reduced training and transition effort.

The outcome was a cost effective solution that provided the accuracy, speed and flexibility the CFO needed, without unnecessary complexity.

The Result

The finance team now follows their usual process, exporting CSVs each month from NetSuite and loading them into the model. New accounts are flagged for mapping and within moments the consolidated financials refresh with a 12 month rolling view.

The process is fast, reliable, and completely under their control. No extra licences, no additional software, no steep learning curve.

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