Glossarytaught in EX7.01
Hardcode
Also called hardcoded value, hard-coded number.
A number typed directly into a formula rather than referenced from an input cell.
It's the most common defect in financial models and the hardest to find, because the cell looks like a calculation and behaves like a constant. Six months later nobody remembers why the growth rate has a 1.02 buried in it.
Colour conventions prevent it. Inputs go in one colour and formulas in another, with no exceptions.
Every assumption gets a cell with a label.