Automation of Post-Order Costing Analysis By Using Visual Basic For Applications In Microsoft Excel: A Case Study

Abstract

Microsoft Excel is used to carry out reporting tasks in small and medium companies across the globe. Most people make reports manually in Microsoft Excel and the manual work takes a tremendous amount of time. The manual work can be easily automated with some effort in Microsoft Excel. This research is about the automation of report that was used to be made manually in Microsoft Excel.The present research is an extension of the previously conducted research (Kalwar, Shahzad, et al., 2022). The manual process to make the post-order costing analysis report in MS excel requires a lot of user time (22.80 minutes, just if there is a single order of only one article with one color), with the greater possibility of human error. Employees in ananonymous footwear company in Lahore used to generate the post-order costing report manually in Excel.Due to the above-mentioned reasons, it was proposedto automate the report using visual basic for applications (VBA) in Microsoft Excel.The planning and costing departmentof the company provided every single step required to make the report manually. A time study was conducted for each stepof report preparation using the stopwatch. VBA macros were programmed for automating all manual report-related processes in excel andthe accuracy of the report was also verified. After the report was automated, the time study was again conducted to measure the execution time after each click. A comparison of both methods indicated that the report automation saved 83.18% of employees' time Additionally, the automated method resulted in an error-free report, and the employee`sworkload was reducedas well.