Why Accountants Want to Keep Using Excel Forever

As human beings, we’re hardwired to not like change. For accountants, this is elevated because of what change means for Accounting.

It’s not necessarily because old habits die hard—but rather, because we associate change in any process, system, and control with increased risk.

This explains why, as accountants, we still rely on hundreds of spreadsheets to manage the month-end close.

Even if the close still takes us an agonizing 10+ days, even if we shudder every time we remember that we have to manually aggregate hundreds of files at the end of the quarter, we still love Excel—because it’s safe.

In business, just keeping up, let alone staying competitive, now requires being flexible, creating new ideas, adopting and adapting to new technology.

For accountants, it’s no different. We know Excel, we understand it, and we’re really good at using it. But it’s holding us back in a multitude of ways: from improving efficiency, from increasing accuracy, and from contributing our best talents to the success of our company.

All those hours and days we spend manually entering data, double-checking that data, and emailing, saving, and filing spreadsheets is simply lost time_._ We’re so busy doing rote work that we can’t do our real work: providing crucial insight, strategy, and analysis.

To that end, changing the way we close every month requires changing our habits.

The first step? Start slowly and simply be open to Excel alternatives. Then begin to research how one of these alternatives might help you improve the accuracy, visibility, and efficiency of your close.

Here are a few resources to get you started:

• Discover the benefits of integrating your ERP with a finance control and automation platform

• Read Gartner’s Magic Quadrant Report To see what experts have to say about the importance of real-time close technology

• Learn how others in your industry have replaced old habits with more efficient solutions

• Read this ebook to learn how your organization can automate repetitive tasks and have more time for analysis

As human beings, we’re hardwired to not like change. For accountants, this is elevated because of what change means for Accounting.

It’s not necessarily because old habits die hard—but rather, because we associate change in any process, system, and control with increased risk.

This explains why, as accountants, we still rely on hundreds of spreadsheets to manage the month-end close.

Even if the close still takes us an agonizing 10+ days, even if we shudder every time we remember that we have to manually aggregate hundreds of files at the end of the quarter, we still love Excel—because it’s safe.

In business, just keeping up, let alone staying competitive, now requires being flexible, creating new ideas, adopting and adapting to new technology.

For accountants, it’s no different. We know Excel, we understand it, and we’re really good at using it. But it’s holding us back in a multitude of ways: from improving efficiency, from increasing accuracy, and from contributing our best talents to the success of our company.

All those hours and days we spend manually entering data, double-checking that data, and emailing, saving, and filing spreadsheets is simply lost time_._ We’re so busy doing rote work that we can’t do our real work: providing crucial insight, strategy, and analysis.

To that end, changing the way we close every month requires changing our habits.

The first step? Start slowly and simply be open to Excel alternatives. Then begin to research how one of these alternatives might help you improve the accuracy, visibility, and efficiency of your close.

Here are a few resources to get you started:

• Discover the benefits of integrating your ERP with a finance control and automation platform

• Read Gartner’s Magic Quadrant Report To see what experts have to say about the importance of real-time close technology

• Learn how others in your industry have replaced old habits with more efficient solutions

• Read this ebook to learn how your organization can automate repetitive tasks and have more time for analysis