Testing Standard

Every Metricvalley workbook is tested before release, and the results are published. This page explains what each release must pass, so you can check our claims instead of taking them on trust.

The standard was adopted on Sep 27, 2026 and applies from each product's next major release. For the Client Profitability Tracker, that is version 2.0.0. Version 1.1.0-rc1 was released before the standard and was tested against its own 18 acceptance cases; it passed 18 of 18 in Excel 365 for Windows desktop. The compatibility page has that result in full.

A failed required check blocks a release. A release never ships with a known failure hidden.

One job, a fixed layout

• Each workbook does one job. A second job is a second product.
• No more than 7 sheets, always in the same order: Start Here, Dashboard, your input sheets, an optional calculation sheet, an optional rates or lists sheet, Guide and Changelog. If a product would need more than 7, the Changelog becomes the last section of the Guide.
• No hidden sheets, rows or columns. Everything the workbook does is visible.
• Every sheet starts with its title in cell A1 and one sentence in A2 saying what to do there.
• Inputs sit on the left, calculations to their right, and checks at the far right.
• The workbook opens on Start Here. All settings, such as your business name and report currency, live in one Setup block there.
• The workbook works without this website. The Guide sheet covers setup, every input, every calculation in words, every check and how to fix it, printing, and known limitations.

Free lite editions follow this standard in a smaller form. They have no Dashboard sheet, they run fewer checks, and each one says on its Start Here sheet what the full version adds.

A color key you can rely on

Every input sheet shows the same three-part key in row 3, without scrolling:

"Yellow: you type here · White: calculated, don't type here · Grey: lists and reference values"

Input cells also have a dark border, so you can find them without relying on color. The fill, font and border colors are identical in the Excel and Google Sheets editions.

Inputs that catch mistakes

• Every input cell has a rule: a dropdown list, a number range, a date window or a text length.
• Selecting an input shows a short message with what to enter, the unit and an example.
• A wrong entry is stopped with a message that names what is allowed. Generic "invalid value" messages don't ship.
• Values that are unusual but possible, such as more than 300 hours in a month, show a warning you can accept.
• Every money label carries its currency code and says whether tax is included.
• Dates are real dates, displayed as 1 Aug 2026 so a swapped day and month is easy to spot.

Checks that show when something is wrong

Pasting skips cell rules in every spreadsheet app, so every rule that affects a result is also enforced by a check. The Dashboard of every full workbook has a Checks block with at least these 10 checks:

1. Totals reconcile, and the per-client breakdown adds up to the total.
2. No required field is blank on a row that has other entries.
3. Dates are in range, and month fields are the first of the month.
4. Every currency and month used has exactly one rate (multi-currency products).
5. No formula errors anywhere.
6. No duplicate records.
7. Numbers are numbers, not text, and there are no unexpected negatives.
8. Every dropdown entry matches its list, including pasted values.
9. Rows used are below 90% of capacity.
10. No sample data is left in the file.

Each row also has its own checks and a status of "OK" or "Review". Rows in "Review" stay visible, are counted, and are left out of the totals until fixed.

An overall status shows OK, CHECK (n) when n checks fail, or SAMPLE while demo records remain. It repeats in row 3 of every sheet. Status is always shown as text as well as color.

Before release, each check is made to fail on purpose on a test copy, to confirm it catches the problem it is meant to catch.

No macros, scripts or connections

• Excel files are .xlsx only. No VBA, macros, ActiveX or form controls.
• Google Sheets editions have no Apps Script code, add-ons or triggers.
• No external links, data connections, web queries or live data functions. Nothing in the file reaches out to the internet.
• Formulas use only functions that behave the same way in Excel and Google Sheets. Any exception is tested on all four platforms and listed in the release notes.

Protection without a password

Every sheet is protected so formulas can't be overwritten by accident. No password is set. Start Here and the Guide tell you how to unprotect a sheet if you want to change something: in Excel, Review > Unprotect Sheet; in Google Sheets, Data > Protect sheets and ranges.

Your input cells stay unlocked. The worked example's demo data clears with named ranges and the Delete key, which works on protected sheets in both apps without deleting any rows or formulas. A non-expert tester must be able to clear it in 3 minutes or less using only Start Here.

Printing

• Start Here, the Dashboard and the Guide print one page wide. Start Here and the Guide print portrait; the Dashboard prints landscape.
• Log sheets repeat their header row on every printed page.
• Each release is checked on both US Letter and A4 paper. Fit-to-width must stay one page wide without shrinking below 60%.
• Footers show the product name and version, the sheet name and the page number.

Accessibility

• Text in cell A1 of every sheet, so screen readers start in the right place.
• One plain header row per table, with a unit in every label. No merged cells and no hidden text.
• Color is never the only signal. Every check and highlight also changes text, and negative values show a minus sign.
• Every chart and picture has alt text, and charts use a colorblind-safe palette. No 3D or pie charts.
• Text contrast meets 4.5:1, and input borders meet 3:1 (WCAG 2.2).
• Inputs can be filled in order using the Tab key.
• Excel's Accessibility Checker must report no errors.
• Each release is checked with high-contrast display settings on Windows and Mac.

Capacity and speed

Each log is pre-sized to a stated capacity: 1,000 rows by default. The Dashboard shows rows used, and a check warns at 90%. The Guide explains how to add more.

Each release is tested with every log filled to capacity:

• Excel 365 for Windows: the file opens in 5 seconds or less, a single edit updates the Dashboard in under half a second, and a full recalculation takes 2 seconds or less.
• Excel for the web and Google Sheets: a single edit updates every Dashboard value in 5 seconds or less.
• File size: 1 MB or less at capacity.

The procedure for going beyond capacity is also tested at 5,000 rows. The test machine and browser are recorded with every result.

The 10-minute setup test

Before a major release, a small-business owner who has never seen the product and has never written a lookup formula sets it up using only the files in the download. An observer times them and answers no questions.

To pass, they must go from opening the download to a Dashboard showing OK with three records of their own in 10 minutes or less, with no formula cell overwritten. Any point where they pause for more than a minute is treated as a defect to fix, even if the test passes.

Google Sheets and Excel give the same answers

The Google Sheets edition is built natively from the same specification as the Excel edition. It is not an uploaded .xlsx converted by Google. Both editions have the same sheets, the same input columns in the same order, the same checks and the same sample data. For the same inputs, every money value on the Dashboard must match within 0.005.

Versions and file integrity

• Version numbers follow a simple rule. A major version (2.0.0) changes input columns, sheet names or named ranges. A minor version (2.1.0) adds outputs or checks with the same inputs. A patch (2.0.1) fixes formulas, text or formatting.
• The version is the same on Start Here, in the footer, in the Changelog, in the file name and in the release notes.
• Every release includes a SHA-256 manifest listing a fingerprint for every file in the download. You can check that your files match exactly what we released:
  • Windows PowerShell: Get-FileHash <file> -Algorithm SHA256
  • Mac Terminal: shasum -a 256 <file>
• A released Google Sheets master file is never edited. A fix is a new version with a new copy link, and the old link keeps working.

How results are published

The standard has checks for four environments: Excel 365 for Windows, Excel 365 for Mac, Excel for the web and Google Sheets. An environment is marked "Tested" only after its checks have been run on that release. Every environment in the tested-on matrix is marked with one status:

• Tested: every required check passed, with the count, workbook version, app build and date. The test machine and browser are recorded too.
• Tested with notes: every required check passed, with a documented difference.
• Not yet tested: we haven't run the checks there. It may work, but we haven't confirmed it.
• Not supported: the environment isn't meant for this use, such as data entry on a phone.

"Probably works" is never listed as compatible. A platform with any failed required check is not marked "Tested", and a partial pass is never rounded up. Excel 365 for Windows and Google Sheets each run 42 checks; Excel 365 for Mac and Excel for the web each run 38.

The results for each release are in the tested-on table on its product page. See the current results on the compatibility page and every change in the changelog.

Honest limits

Every product lists what it is not for and its known limitations, including every untested platform and every manual step. The same wording appears on Start Here, in the Guide, in the quick-start guide and on the product page.

Metricvalley is independent of Microsoft and Google.