Is Excel Still The Best Tool For Financial Professionals?

The majority of financial professionals and businesses across many industries have, for years, been relying on Microsoft Excel as a tool to manage their financial operations. Excel has been a household name for many years, and it certainly provides a reliable way to manage accounting for most people.

If you’re seeking a new role or looking to progress within your current company, assessing your skills and considering the value of career development in different areas can be helpful. Becoming fluent in the language of Excel and its competitors can be very useful, and can help you to make educated decisions about the very best system for your setup.

What Is Great About Excel?

1.  Integration is excellent. Excel is highly valuable in that it works flawlessly with other Microsoft applications, such as Word, Powerpoint and Outlook. The hassle involved in converting or exporting files is removed, which is a big benefit for many professionals.
2. It is affordable. Office 365, Microsoft’s office package, is priced very reasonably and can be spread into monthly payments or bought as a one off purchase.
3. It’s easy to use. A major reason why Excel has endured for so long is that it is simple and straightforward to use, saving time and energy.
4. Templates are useful. There are several very useful templates within Excel, covering payroll function with ease. This aspect, again, is labour saving and easy to set up and maintain.

Potential Problems With Excel

1. Excel does not enable easy collaboration. With more and more businesses adopting cloud based approaches to their documents and spreadsheets, problems may arise when Excel seriously lags behind in this area. It is possible to use the web app for multiple user working, but it’s not as easy or as useful to work with as the desktop programme. Google sheets is a clearly superior option in this area, because collaboration is made much easier to manage.
2. Excel is limited when working with diverse data sets. Basic graphing is possible in Excel, but if this is a function you like to work with at an advanced level, Excel will simply not be enough for you. Experts in this area suggest that Google Sheets, Zoho Sheet and Corel Quattro Pro may have the edge here, enabling professional charts and graphs more effectively.
3. Excel may not be enough for larger businesses. Scalability can be a big issue for many companies who have been working with Excel, since it is not adept at handling large data sets and works with huge files that create problems for many computers. Competitor Oracle Hyperion offers budgeting and planning tools that can cope better with larger amounts of data, so has a clear advantage here.

Are You Looking For An Accounting Job in Cork and Galway?

CareerWise is Ireland’s leading specialist Technical and Executive Recruitment firm, with expertise in the Medical Device, Sciences/Pharma and ICT industries. We work with candidates and businesses across the Engineering, Supply Chain and Finance sectors, and our friendly team can help you to secure the new position you want.

For roles including accounting jobs across Cork, Limerick or accounting jobs across Galway, call us at CareerWise on +353 (0) 21 206 1900 for a consultation, or contact us online today.

Joe Robbins

(Director) BBS (Hons), MBPICS – Shannon Office

Joe Robbins is co-founder of CareerWise Recruitment. A graduate of the University of Limerick (Degree in Business Studies, 1985), Joe worked in the UK for five years where he specialised in materials management, production management and plant management for a number of companies.

He returned to Ireland in 1992 to become Operations Manager for a Cork-based start-up, FMC Automotive Division which was subsequently taken over by Snap-on Equipment. Joe managed the business re-location of this company to Shannon in 1997 before setting up CareerWise Recruitment in 1999.

He is a committee member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Mid-West region, and a former Director and Vice President of the Shannon Chamber of Commerce. Joe is former Chairperson of the Sixmilebridge Camogie Club and current Chairperson of the Clare County Camogie Board.

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