Hands down best and most powerful spreadsheet
March 04, 2025

Hands down best and most powerful spreadsheet

Kenton Sanders | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Excel

I use Microsoft Excel for all accounting functions and financial reporting. It is the primary tool we use to assure accounting procedures are correctly handled. It is also the tool we use to build our annual budgets. We use Microsoft Excel on a daily basis.

Pros

  • Creates complex formulas in a simple manner
  • Makes building macros easy by recording steps
  • Automatically gives details such as totals and averages

Cons

  • More assistance on writing formulas
  • Easier conditional formatting
  • It helped us make financial decisions about a second location which ultimately saved us $150,000
  • We have saved thousands of dollars by not having to outsource complex bookkeeping
For me, I would give it a 10 because I have used it for many years and have a deep knowledge of writing formulas and macros. However, I give it a 9 because for most people there is a learning curve. The learning curve is much bigger to become a power user.

Do you think Microsoft Excel delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft Excel's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft Excel live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft Excel go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Microsoft Excel again?

Yes

It is perfect for building complex budgets. For us, it is the perfect tools to compare all financial reports and it the relations between the reports are correct. We use it for keeping inventories, but it is less appropriate in these cases because a lack of control for first in first out types of tracking.

Using Microsoft Excel

15 - Most do simple calculations, budgets, inventories. Finance people do more complex sorts, subtitles, and macros on large amounts of data.
2 - Depth of knowledge and experience with formulas, macro writing (visual basic) , and other Excel functions.
  • Personnel tracking with salaries and benefits
  • Overall budget and merging with individual departmental budgets
  • Inventory tracking
  • Donor contributions (frequency and high to low comparisons)
  • Automate financial accounting reports relationships (to assure accurate accounting)
  • Keep and track inventories automating first in first out, etc.
  • More complex and accurate projections of donor contributions
  • Create presentations for board meetings
  • More in-depth accounting functions
Excel remains the industry standard for spreadsheets and has maintained simple and straight-forward formula writing methods. Although there is a learning curve to do more complex calculations, there are countless help sites and videos on the Internet for almost any need.

Evaluating Microsoft Excel and Competitors

Yes - Google Sheets. Google Sheets is a simplified version of Excel. We replaced it because it can't do many of the functions that Excel does.
  • Integration with Other Systems
  • Ease of Use
All members of our finance staff had a lot of experience with Excel and everyone was very happy with it. That led us to implement the use of Excel for all departments. We also moved Apple users from Numbers to Excel for consistency.
We have a division of Windows users and a group of Mac users. I would migrate everyone to Windows to eliminate the hesitancy of some to move from Numbers to Excel.

Microsoft Excel Training

  • No Training
Excel is very easy to use for simple applications. I recommend starting this way and then explore more complex functions by trial and error and Internet search.

Configuring Microsoft Excel

There was really no need to configure. It can be used as it is for any user.
There is no need to configure Excel for individual users.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code

Microsoft Excel Support

We have never had to contact support.

Using Microsoft Excel

ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Totals, averages (they appear at the bottom right when selecting a groups of cells
  • Summing groups of cells (using the summation icon, Excel accurately guesses the cells nearby that you want to sum)
  • Custom sorts of data in cells
  • Dragging cells with data such as dates, Excel will accurately follow your pattern, such as progression of months.
  • Functions such as conditional formatting requires me to research how to do it each time
  • Using VLookup requires me to research how to use each time
  • Getting columns to accurately freeze is sometimes difficult
Yes, but I don't use it

Microsoft Excel Reliability

Each user can use it to whatever level of expertise they have. It remains the same so users can contribute to another's work regardless of whether they have more or less expertise.
We've never experienced a lack of availability with Excel, whether using a stand alone version or Microsoft 365.
Excel load and performs calculations immediately. It integrate well with all Microsoft Office applications and does not slow them down.

Integrating Microsoft Excel

We have integrated Excel with other Microsoft Office products, which was automatic.
  • Powerpoint
  • Araize Fast Fund
  • Shelby Systems
Powerpoint integration was simple, use it to create presentations. Fast Fund and Shelby have provided integrations with Excel for function like editing and importing large budgets, which allows the user to automate monthly division of budget numbers, etc. Using the built-in integration was very simple.
  • We do not have any other systems to integrate with Excel
We do not have any other systems we need to integrate with Excel.
  • File import/export
No.
Look for products (applications that already integrate with Excel).

Relationship with Microsoft

Our vendor was our third party IT support company. They made recommendations, handled the implementation and provided support.
Our vendor continues to provide support for any issues we have.

Upgrading Microsoft Excel

Yes - Lack of support for earlier versions. Changing was not difficult, but initial orientation took some learning as certain functions changed or changed locations.

Comments

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