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This section covers the complete submission cycle in detail — from the process owner’s perspective and from the perspective of the contributors who will use the workbooks distributed to them.
Here is a video, or read below.
Open: Open a planning workbook via FastClose ribbon → Open Report, or by opening a saved .xlsx file.
Review: Look at the current figures — actuals from your ERP in the relevant columns, and any previously submitted plan figures in the yellow columns.
Edit: Type values or formulas into the yellow submission cells. Actuals and totals are protected and cannot be edited.
Submit: Click Submit in the FastClose ribbon. Review the preview dialog, then click OK to commit.
Refresh: The report re-runs automatically and shows the newly committed figures. The submission is now visible to anyone running the same report or a reporting report over the same scenario.
Standard Excel formulas work in submission cells and are preserved when the report is re-run, as long as the same row is still in the results. Useful patterns include:
Equal spread across periods: type the annual total once and spread it using =AnnualTotal/12 across the monthly columns.
Reference a supporting model on another sheet: =Payroll!B14 or =CapexSchedule!D7. FastClose does not touch worksheets other than the one containing the report.
Uplift from last year’s actuals: =C5*1.05 (where C5 shows last year’s actual for the same account and period).
The Excel workbook can be saved with edited but unsubmitted figures. This is intentional — it allows numbers to be refined across multiple sessions before committing. Others opening the same report will see the last submitted values, not locally edited ones.
When the report is re-run with local edits present
FastClose asks whether to keep the edits or replace them with the last submitted values.
Choose Keep edits to continue working, Replace to discard
The Preview button in the FastClose ribbon shows at any time which cells have been edited but not yet submitted. This is the safest way to check the position before closing or sharing the workbook.
To remove a previously submitted value, type 0 into the cell and submit. The zero is stored explicitly —it removes the figure but keeps the row present in the results.
FastClose does not store the data entry workbook or any formulae within it, in FastClose itself - just the numbers submitted. So. to have an audit trail of how the planned numbers were ended up at, it is important to save the data entry workbook to a network drive as well as submit the data created.
Now try the downloadable exercises below:
08.07 Submitting Data in Excel - Exercises.pdf
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