A model audit is the colloquial term for the tasks performed when conducting due diligence on a financial model, in order to eliminate spreadsheet error.

A study in 1998 concluded that even MBA students with over 250 hours of spreadsheet development experience had a 24% chance of introducing spreadsheet error.

With current spreadsheets, this forced repetition of near identical formulas can have detrimental consequences from a quality assurance standpoint and is often the cause of many spreadsheet errors.

As more and more estimators came to rely on spreadsheets, and the formulas within the spreadsheets became more complex, spreadsheet errors became more frequent.

However the Rogoff and Reinhart spreadsheet error and the RR years exclusion result in Canada not providing any data for the computation of the average for the highest debt/GDP category."