Automated method for building a model

A method for defining the relationship of output variables to input variables in a spreadsheet wherein each output variable faces a known and fixed relationship with one or more of the input variables, comprising the steps of:

• defining a set of input variables;
• defining at least one known output variable that has a known and fixed relationship with a defined one or more of the input variables, which known and fixed relationship between the output variables and the one or more of input variables is contained in a predefined and fixed dataset such that each and all of the one or more of the input variables has a direct effect on the least one known output variable in the dataset;
• and
• determining the value of the known output variable from the one or more of the input variables by mapping the one or more of the input variables through a stored representative of the dataset with the known and fixed relationship represented therein in a predictive model to predict the known output variable from the stored representation and replacing the previous value of the corresponding output variable with the predicted value for the known output variable.