(Edit - there’s a little accounting jargon in here. If you’re not accounting-savvy, just do your best to ignore it and focus on the issues and not the specifics.)
So, I thought I’d combine our two latest threads with an ongoing complaint I have at my work. As you might know, I started working at a new CPA firm about four months ago. I like 99% of it. The 1% might drive me absolutely crazy.
I’ve had a few professional jobs in my life, and in every single job, Excel is a way of life. If you know Excel, you’re on the right path. They can teach you the rest. If you don’t know Excel, then you’re welcome to leave. The only tools that even come remotely as close to being “necessary” are e-mail and a telephone. (And I’m not sure about that.) I imagine that almost all finance/accounting jobs are that way.
In my new firm, we have Excel 2013 installed on every computer. And almost nobody uses it. And it drives me crazy. If we need to compile a list of sources of revenue, we use pencils and paper. (I’m not kidding about this.) If we need to create a schedule of K-1’s received, we use pencil and paper. If we need to get a copy of a general ledger (that might exceed 500 pages), we get a copy ON PAPER. We do all of our trial balances in a computer program called Creative Solutions.
Let me tell you about Creative Solutions. It might be a good product IF WE EVER UPDATED IT. Right now, we’re using the same version that we used in 1996. (Some other things that happened in 1996–I got my driver’s license, I took my first “keyboarding” class in high school on Microsoft Works using a 486, and the Cowboys won the Super Bowl.) It is capable of only doing two things–inputting a trial balance and creating journal entries. All this can be done more quickly and efficiently on Excel. Plus there are a million other things that Excel can do.
When I came on board, I did what I had been taught to do in other firms, and I built trial balances on Excel. I was quickly told that we don’t use it, and that I needed to learn the antiquated software. I have tried to show the higher-ups how much more efficient Excel is, but the response is the same. “Every time you add a column, you have to change the formulas, and that takes time. We need to use the software that we pay for. All you need to do a trial balace is our Creative Solutions software.”
If I could draw an analogy, whenever I hear my boss say that, it sounds like, “If you want to get from home to work, all you need to do is walk. You got two feet. That’s all you need. You don’t need one of them there auto-mo-biles. You gotta fill it up, change oil, and change the tires if they go flat. We don’t need to worry about all that nonsense. Just walk from one place to the other.”
It’s extremely frustrating, because I know FOR A FACT that Excel would be faster and more efficient than the dinosaur software that we currently use. Moreover, every other CPA that I know (and I know a lot of them) use Excel to do their work. In fact, I bet that if you stood up in the middle of a room and declared, “We use 1996 Creative Solutions to do our trial balances”, we would get laughed at. And I mean literally, LOL. Yet, my current firm continues do the same thing that it did in the 90’s.
Maybe I’m just ranting. But it’s something that really really really bothers me. Any thoughts or suggestions?