🔌 When Your "One-Click" System Blacks Out...
Last week, I hit “refresh” on my management accounts - the same one-click Excel-based system I teach in my Masterclass.
And the numbers disappeared.
It wasn’t an error.
It was data absence.
Every report. Every page.
Full of zeros.
Not a single value returned.
Panic set in! 💥 For two reasons:
1️⃣ I needed those reports. My boss was waiting.
2️⃣ Even more importantly… this is the very system I teach to others.
Now what? 🤔
I dove into Power Query - no error messages.
I checked formulas – still fine.
The logic? Seemed intact.
But my data source only had 10 rows.
Instead of thousands.
And all 10 were from this month.
Not the reporting month.
Not “All Dates” like the scheduled report was set to.
After ruling everything else out… I checked the actual file that had been emailed to me by QuickBooks.
And there it was: the cause of all the zeros.
The emailed version of my scheduled report was suddenly limited to just the current month despite being set to “All Dates.”
But when I manually exported the exact same report directly from QuickBooks?
Thousands of rows, as expected.
⚠️ A temporary bug in QuickBooks had broken the automation.
📌 Two important lessons here:
1️⃣ No automation is 100% bulletproof.
That’s why I never build systems hidden behind complex code, macros, or tools you can’t troubleshoot yourself.
2️⃣ You need a fallback plan.
Automation should empower you, not trap you.
In my case? I ditched the broken emailed file and manually exported the correct one. My reports instantly worked again. Phew!!! 😌
What I teach in my Masterclass isn’t theory.
It’s not a hands-off course I made years ago and forgot about.
I’m using this system and personally rely on it all the time.
So when bugs like this happen, I catch them, I fix them, and I teach you how to handle them too.
Because software will change.
Bugs will creep in.
But if you understand your system…
You can adapt.
You can fix it.
You stay in control.
And that’s what real automation confidence looks like.
My goal is to make automation understandable, flexible, and fixable.
👉 If you want to learn how to build a system like this (and what to do when things break), the Masterclass “How I Automate Management Accounts in Excel (and How You Can Too)” walks you through every step.
