Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I love the warm feeling
Of clicking "Spreadsheet”, then "New”.
You #SPILL when I LOOKUP,
You #REF when I err,
But I always come back,
It’s like that film Her.
You validate my data,
You concatenate my strings,
You’re the only one
Who gets what I brings.
This week in The Briefcase, we’re feeling a bit soppy. It’s Valentine’s, love is in the air, and it’s our duty to honour a relationship that’s stood the test of time. Through all those stressful times, this stunning piece of software has kept by our side.
It’s a bit Wuthering Heights – definitely toxic, but everyone around us knows where our heart lies. Today we’re putting the "date” in "update” and writing a love letter to the original workspouse, Excel.
🧩 Thinking of you
Dear Microsoft Excel,
No matter how many FP&A platforms enter the room wearing sleek dashboards and promises of automation, you, sweet Excel, are always there. We may have looked once or twice, but nothing can keep us from you!
You're the one we turn to when the budgeting software breaks, when the ERP integration fails, or when someone from marketing sends over a CSV file that’s somehow a megabyte. You never judge. You don’t actually really express any emotions, come to think of it.
But you’ve seen us at our best! You were there when we built our first macros. Remember that lookup function that cross-referenced products and amount sold? Wow. How about that IF statement that read like Finnegans Wake? There’s just so many memories.
But let’s not ignore the bad times. 7pm Friday nights struggling with a circular reference. Trying to troubleshoot with a colleague and it suddenly being fine when they open it. That file we named "ARRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH.xlsx”.
But despite all that drama, we’re still together. And even if the rest of the world tries to pull us apart, we’ll stay together forever!
🛠️ A few complaints
That said, there are things about you we wish we could change. And although a love letter seems an odd medium in which to do this, we’re going to detail your faults now.
You know you often crash just before we save right? Like, you’ve done it a few times now and we’re honestly not sure why? Not trying to needle you, we just want answers. But also – version control – what’s all that about? We still don’t know who overwrote the Q4 working file, but we know it wasn’t us.
But we can’t stay mad at you! With you, every day is a surprise. Sure, you might occasionally lightly gaslight us, but you don’t force us into dashboards we didn’t ask for or workflows that assume we’re a different department entirely, and that’s worth the odd file disappearing.
You make life interesting!
👩💻 We’re not the only ones
As you mature, you might be worried that younger pieces of software are catching people’s eyes. But a little birdie called Datarails told me the opposite is true.
- 89% of companies’ financial processes still run on Excel.
- 57% of accountants call it their favourite business tool.
- 54% of Gen Z finance professionals say they "love” Excel.
That’s right, more than half of 22–32-year-olds in finance say they love Excel. One in four spend over seven hours a day with it. We’ve got competition, which is why we’re writing this love letter to you now. Oh, please, never leave us, Excel!
Yours lovingly,
Sensitive accountants
🧠 Final thoughts
We moan about its limitations, its crashes, and the way it ruins our weekends during month-end close, but it’s also the best we’re ever going to get. To go back to the Datarails study we looked at, 78% of younger professionals would decline a job (or accept it grudgingly) if Excel wasn’t allowed. That’s love. It might not be Romeo and Juliet, but it is love.
But we promise not to write any more letters to Excel.
Source: Datarails – Why Gen Z and Millennial Finance Professionals Love Excel More than their Bosses
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