Services · Data Cleanup
The spreadsheet,
made readable.
A dedicated service for the genuinely messy, one-off client file — dedupes, standardised formats, fixed formulas, currencies reconciled, and clawbacks tagged. Rewritten for the next person who opens the file, with a before-and-after you can read before paying the invoice.
What gets cleaned
Eight problem categories, one flat scope.
The same shape the /work case studies describe, broken down by the work that actually ships. Pick the row that matches what is in the file — most files combine three or four of these.
Unpivoted exports
Webhook sales feeds and reporting dumps collapsed to one row per deal, one row per order line, and one row per SKU / date / channel.
Dedupe + canonical key
The same SKU spelled five different ways folded into a single canonical ID per product per period — so totals stop drifting.
Format normalisation
Dates, currencies, decimal separators, whitespace, and casing brought to a single convention across the file.
Sign-convention reconciliation
Clawbacks tagged positive or negative and matched against the payout — so positive and negative entries stop cancelling out in the totals.
Currency normalisation
Mixed-currency commission and revenue rows brought to one currency, with the FX rule stated on the deliverable so it survives review.
Category rollup
Variant spellings of the same category line — cogs, cogs (adj), COGS — combined into one row per category and one clean monthly total.
Formula repair
Broken #REF!, ?, —, N/A, and TBD cells turned into explainable placeholders, totals repopulated, and the file opens without a swarm of red flags.
Sheet merge
Multi-tab files stitched into one continuous date range; footers reconciled against the body so cross-sheet references stop throwing #REF!.
Deliverable
What comes back.
One pass, one file, one short companion. You can read the change before you sign off on the scope.
Engagement shape
one-offA clean file and a one-page changelog.
Sent under NDA on request · English only · Most turn around in a single calendar week.
- The cleaned file, opening without #REF! or ? — totals populated and tied to the source rows.
- A one-page changelog listing every rule applied: canonical keys, currency conversions, sign conventions, formula repair.
- A named process you can repeat on the next file, or hand off to whoever inherits it.
Same shape every time — the file gets readable, the decision gets easier.
See the work
Three real-shape before-and-after samples on /work — unpivoted weekly sales exports, mixed-currency commission logs reconciled against the payout, and monthly P&Ls with the variation spike already isolated.
Related reading
Reads on cleanup from the studio.
Data Cleanup
3 min readHow to audit a messy spreadsheet before handing it to someone else.
A pre-handoff spreadsheet audit checklist: column consistency, formula errors, duplicate rows, and named ranges, in that order. Fix the slips before sending so the next reader gets a clean file.
Data Cleanup
3 min readFive passes every messy spreadsheet needs.
A named, repeatable cleanup: canonical keys first, formats second, sign and currency reconciliation third, formulas and sheet merge last. Flat scope, visible before-and-after.
Send the file. Get a clean version back.
One short email with a sample and a sentence about the decision the data needs to support is enough to start. Reply the same business day, with a fixed quote.
Free reference sheet
Dashboard Starter Template
Once the file is clean, the next move is the dashboard. A free reference sheet covering KPI selection, layout, and data-source mapping.
$50 starter · NDA on request · Most engagements turn around in a single calendar week.