This article will take a look at ten ways Excel can be used to help Accountants organize, visualize, and analyze large sets of data.

Using Microsoft Excel for Accounting

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application that provides Accountants with functions and formulas to organize data and numbers. This powerful tool has various applications for performing both basic and complex calculations, sorting data, and visualizing insights and trends. Because so much of an Accountant’s daily tasks revolve around executing repetitive tasks, learning Excel features and functions, as well as how to perform shortcuts and create macros, are valuable skills that will save a significant amount of time when working with worksheets or workbooks.

10 Most Useful Excel Skills for Accountants

The following are ten Excel skills for every Accountant to master to help them more effectively and efficiently perform their daily tasks:

  • Sparklines are small charts in the cell of a spreadsheet that present a compact data visualization. They often depict trends in value sets, such as seasonal increases or economic cycles. Sparklines are often placed close to the data they reflect, which helps audience members form connections between the data and its visual depiction. Sparklines come in several varieties, such as column sparklines, line sparklines, and win/loss sparklines.
  • PivotTables are a great way for Accountants to analyze data that’s in a list. They can be used to manipulate data, as well as to create scenarios for the data. 
  • The Formula Auditing toolbar is available in the Formula Tab. It provides an assortment of options for studying how Excel formulas are executed, as well as for tracing errors and dependent cells. This toolbar helps Accountants design and audit various sheets.
  • Data validation provides a way to specify the type of content that can be held in a cell, as well as if the cell is able to hold content. This feature can be used to ensure that a value is a date or number, or to generate a drop-down menu that includes predefined choices. Data validation can alert Accountants with an error message if they try to enter an invalid value or enter something into a cell that is not able to be edited.
  • INDEX/MATCH are two helpful accounting functions. MATCH allows users locate the relative position of information on a worksheet. For example, if a cell reads “15,” the MATCH function can be used to search for any cells containing 15. The results will show the cell that contains this number. INDEX can be used to show the value of one or more cell rows or column numbers. When used together, these functions have applications for parsing numbers contained in datasets with similarly arranged data, such as quarterly revenues for various products during the same period of time.
  • Macros are instructions that are entered into Excel to manipulate data. Accountants can record their own macros, name them, and save them, then run them as many times as necessary to execute repetitive data manipulations that would otherwise have to be performed manually. They can also be shared with other Excel users. Macros are useful for changing style and formatting in Excel, as well as manipulating data and text. If, for example, an Accountant has to make a monthly report in which overdue amounts are bolded and flagged with the color red, they can create a macro that will be applied to automatically make these formatting changes. Macros are also used to spot cells that contain duplicate values, among other tasks.
  • Asset depreciation helps Accountants calculate the amount an asset has lost during a specific period of time. Excel provides several methods for calculating the depreciation value of assets:
      1. DB, or decline balance depreciation is helpful for reducing the value of an asset by a set percentage. 
      2. SLN, or straight-line depreciation, can illustrate how the value of an asset lowers over the course of a specific time period or over its lifespan.
      3. VBD, or variable decline balance, indicates depreciation during a period of time specified by the Accountant. 
      4. SYD, or the sum of years’ digits depreciation, provides another way for Accountants to calculate the decline of an item’s value.
  • Conditional formatting helps accountants alter the look of specific cells that have met specific criteria. This is useful for keeping track of important details or searching a worksheet to locate information. One example of using conditional formatting is to display outgoing payments in red, which indicates they are negative numbers. 
  • Data manipulation plays an integral role in creating financial reports of models. It allows Accountants to add or delete columns or rows as needed, as well as hide or unhide data. The more familiarity with Excel’s tools for data manipulation an Accountant has, the easier it is to create reports that are concise and accessible to various stakeholders. Some basic data manipulation tools revolve around formatting numbers and spreadsheets, as well as performing core Excel lookup functions, such as VLOOKUP.
  • Data connection across formats is often necessary when combining data from various formats and applications, like Word documents or PDFs. This can be done by converting or embedding these documents into Excel. It allows Accountants to add information to a spreadsheet that would not otherwise be able to be displayed in a worksheet format.

The more of the above-mentioned Excel skills an Accountant has under their belt, the easier it will be to quickly perform tasks and calculations that would otherwise take hours.

Learn More About Excel with Hands-On Classes

Noble Desktop currently offers a variety of Excel courses in NYC and live online for those looking to brush up on their spreadsheet skills. In addition, there are also in-person and live online Excel courses available through Noble Desktop or one of its affiliate schools. A variety of course options are offered, ranging in duration from three hours to two days and costing between $229 and $1,099. 

Noble Desktop’s Excel Bootcamp provides a great option for those who want to master core Excel concepts, such as working with VLOOKUP and PivotTables, as well as What-If Analysis. Students who enroll in this rigorous, 21-hour course can elect to study in person in Manhattan or learn in the live online environment. This small class comes with the option of a free retake and covers a variety of Excel concepts applicable to the business world. 

Those interested in studying close to home can also browse over 400 in-person Microsoft Office classes in a city near you to find local Excel study options.