Having experience with Excel is one of the most important skills for an accountant. According to an analysis of job postings for accountants, Excel is required in 19 percent of the listings. Experience with Excel is one thing but knowing how to use it efficiently is the most important factor. Let’s look at 7 essential Excel skills for accountants.
1. Keyboard Shortcuts
Excel is designed to work with a mouse, like all modern applications. But a lot of what you do with Excel uses the keyboard. Switching back-and-forth between the keyboard and mouse can slow you down and if you do it enough, it can lead to repetitive stress injuries.
Instead of reaching for the mouse every time you need to run a command, learn some keyboard shortcuts so you can keep your hands on the keys.
2. Repeat the Last Action
If you’re entering a lot of information in an Excel spreadsheet, chances are you’ll be repeating certain tasks. Things like cell formatting and column totals can take several clicks each time you do it.
Instead of repeating the same entries over and over, use the Repeat function. Press F4 or CTRL-Y to repeat the last action you took.
3. Perform Calculations Without Formulas
If you want to get a sum, count, or average of the contents of several cells but don’t need to add it to the spreadsheet itself, you don’t need to enter a formula. Instead, highlight the cells and check the status bar at the bottom of the window to see all three numbers.
4. Easy Charting with Sparklines
Sparklines are small charts that fit in a single cell. You can highlight a row or column of numbers that you want to chart and insert a sparkline to get a small line chart automatically.
These are a great way to build Excel dashboards to get a one-page overview of all your important metrics.
5. Using Data Validation to Limit Users’ Options
If you create spreadsheets for other people to fill in, it’s helpful to limit their options. Otherwise, they’ll usually find ways to enter data that can break your formulas.
Excel’s Data Validation feature lets you restrict people’s options for certain cells. You can limit entries to yes or no, certain names, numbers within a certain range, and many other options.
6. Using Proper Cell Referencing
You can reference cells in two ways in Excel – absolute and relative references. Absolute references mean the reference always refers to the same cell when you copy it into another location. Relative references will change when you copy them.
For example, $A$1 is an absolute reference that will always refer to cell A1, no matter where you copy it. A1 is a relative reference so if you copy it down one cell, it will change to B1.
7. Summarize Data with Pivot Tables
Pivot Tables are one of Excel’s most powerful features. They let you manipulate a list of data in various ways so you can predict how changes to your inputs will affect your final results. Excel’s Pivot Table wizard makes them easy to create but when you dig into the Pivot Table options, you’ll find all kinds of ways to slice and dice your data.
These Excel Skills for Accountants Are Just the Beginning
These 7 Excel skills for accountants will help you save time and get more insight from your data but they’re only scratching the surface. Excel is one of the most powerful apps on the market so spend some time learning what it can do. You’ll constantly find new ways to use it to manipulate and assess your business’ data.
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