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When it comes to the emails, the internet, cloud software etc, most accountants are either self-taught or taught by the self-taught. But in a profession that features rigorous training and examinations in almost all other areas, is this good enough.
When I started as an accountant 31 years ago, the internet had not been invented, at least not on a commercial basis. We have had to learn many new skills and not through exams.
Without these modern skills and knowledge I could not do my job. I do not remember do taught we to use the internet or send an email or submit my first tax return.
Similar for using spreadsheets!
Is that not a way of modern life now!
What an amazing article!
Did accountants have to demonstrate "an adequate level of competence" when completing analysis sheets prepared by hand?
I have to say I find this article mindblowingly rubbish.
Any accountant worth his/her/gender neutral salt would know if the result of an incorrectly formulated spreadsheet was right or wrong.
I presume he means the good old 12 column cash book sheets what we used to use for bank reconciliation before spreadsheets.
Having been a user of Lotus 123 (!) for many years when the Company I was working for in 1995 was taken over we had Excel thrust upon us with little or no support, other than the functionality within Excel itself for converting 123 ways of doing things to Excel ways. I don't think you can enforce "standards" of Excel competence, as long as the user can make whatever is required using Excel in whichever way works best, that should be enough. I do think sometimes that professional bodies assume that their members have unlimited budgets for training purposes, which we don't, I learned on the job and through experience with other users! (I'm CIMA). I use Excel every day for client accounts and find it far easier than other packages, but maybe that's just me...
You didn’t have Microsoft thrust upon you. Lotus Software was bought out by IBM who discontinued its production in 2012 giving MsOffice the complete market place.
My guess is that some skullduggery was in play to get around the monopolies and mergers commission.
I have seen "users" using Spreadsheets for typing letters (in those early days). We have to ensure certain practices (not standards) so that error risks are minimized, if the file is handed over to another user, they can work without bothering the "author" too much. It is not only effectiveness but also efficiency, well accountants are always cost conscious :)
Even on those lovely columnar paper sheets the user had to write obeying those columns, not between columns or whatever way they liked.
We keep Revenue on the top and then costs / expenses in certain order, what is harm if I keep Revenue at the bottom (In some situation we like this but generally not).
Participation in internal courses on the correct use of spreadsheets was mandatory when I was a student accountant at one of the then Big Four firms more than 30 years ago. I also benefited from an advanced spreadsheet course after I had qualified.
It is true that the software covered by the early courses comprised Visicalc and Supercalc. The advanced training was on Lotus 123.
I never received any formal training on Excel but the basic principles and disciplines were properly taught and our competence assessed.
I think I must be the same age as Simon and started just after Quill pens went out of fashion. Then and now one needs to quality check the calculations and output along with making sure the presentation is adequate. It is also easy to get lazy with modern tech e.g. 10% of functionality commonly used - I find a spell looking at functions quite often reveals some surprises.
There is also the current problem of over reliance on excel when safer software is available e.g. using Excel to budget when Sage 50 Forecasting may be a better choice. I could go on - a 'Best Practice' guidance would be welcome. I never use Excel for company accounts or tax work as the risk of a mistake in Excel is too high.
You obviously have no idea as to how use excel, otherwise you wouldn’t make such stupid comments.
I go back to the late 70's when today's equivalent of spredsheets [SS] was called financial modelling performed via 300 baud terminals to an IBM mainframe elsewhere in the country.
I progressed from there thru Lotus 123, Quattro Pro, Excel amongst others.
In the early days and possible some still, if the report coming off a computer it must be right!! Really, garbage in garbage out. You should always have an idea of what result to expect, is it where you expected it to be?
In my SS's I tend to add in extra columns and/or rows to perform cross checks so at least everything should add up, with generally my starting point being a template I've setup and used for other clients.
Training courses .v. self taught - Well I suppose that depends on the individual. Personally I've been self taught from day 1 and that's 40+ yrs. I did attend with a colleague in the mid 90's and Excel for power users course in Leeds. At the end of the day we learnt one thing, oh and taught the lecturer one as well. Ours came FREE, we paid for his :-)
Agree with the sentiments of most that this is nonsense. The key test of competence self taught or otherwise is are you getting the right results. Having a certificate of competence from an alleged competent body is meaningless. The number of people I have come across over my career who had certificates up to the eyeballs but were to put it mildly were incompetent. Certificates prove nothing it's competence on the job and a willingness to learn and teach yourself when you need to to keep at the top of your game that's important.
I’ve attended just about every spreadsheet training course available from VisiCalc and Lotus123 right through to the latest versions of MsExcel.
I have delivered my own in-house training courses.
I can make my spreadsheets mine data from almost any system and can produce magnificent reporting suites, especially in SAP BW/BI.
In my experience 90% of spreadsheet users are only able to basic things as sub-total columns and rows and subtract and divide to analyse data.
Sad really!
[quoteIn my experience 90% of spreadsheet users are only able to basic things as sub-total columns and rows and subtract and divide to analyse data.
Sad really!
[/quote]
And in my experience in 90% of the time I only need to do basic things.
Clients do not want all dancing spreadsheet work and will not pay for it. I use some fancy ones but just to make my life easier and I had some time to build them.
Totally agreed.
There are so many formulas and data arrangements that you can do with excel which can eliminate human errors as well as cut down processing time to 75% of those who only do normal stuffs with excel.
Hi,
I have always worked in the industry as a bookkeeper/ Finance manager. I have also worked with a few practices. I have self-taught excel myself based on the requirement that comes with the job. If you only use excel as a reporting purposes, you only need to know a few basics to make the spreadsheet printable format with presentable colours and lines as well as with a few hyperlinks.
But when it comes to volumes of data transactions to be processed onto accountancy package software, that's when one will need serious excel skills.
Another thing I find is that staffs working for practice do not have or given enough opportunity to learn and be creative within their work to do with excel, due to time pressure from jobs. Within industry, that's where you have to keep developing your excel skill to thrive for data analysis and efficiency, especially when I work with new clients who are fairly sizeable businesses. They have thousands of card receipt transactions or they are sitting on a vase amount of database and didn't occur to them to use to analyse business capacity and performances in all sort of areas.
What I also find is that not everyone knows that you can import journals onto sage and other accountancy cloud packages. I help businesses to cut down staff hours by introducing excel processes whether 1000 transactions or 10000, it will be the same length of time to process them.
So excel is very valuable and time saving tool if you know how to use it or design data arrangement, only for the industry. Not so much for the accountants who are only interested in filing year end accounts/ tax computation for compliance purposes or reporting purposes.
Simon, I suspect people don’t like being rumbled when they realise that their Excel skills really are poor.
There should be "practical" exam as part of qualification. ICAP (Pakistani Institute) conducts practical exam covering IT, spreadsheets are part of it, not covering in-depth but giving a foothold.
When I started in profession there were only main frames and minis with a few clients. Desktops (PCs) were available in west but very rare in Pakistan.
I focused on technology, have good knowledge of both arena, but was labelled by fellow professional as techie and not accepted in the group and tech professional did nor accept as I had no academic back ground and was "over age', so my career in wilderness.
Very timely Simon - there is a conference in London next Thursday 6 July on spreadsheet risks and there's a case study from an insurance company which covers their self-assessment experience. http://www.eusprig.org/annual-conference.htm The European Spreadsheet Risk Interest Group (EuSpRIG)
At the recent Edinburgh ISACA conference, Christopher Rentrop gave a session on using Cobit 5 to manage end-user-computing ("Shadow IT") where he stressed the bottom-up involvement of pilot tests, and the need to assure the quality of the self-assessment programme.
Accountants often have an advantage over other modellers in that they are automating data processing tasks and have reconciliations they can rely upon to spot errors. Such as, from last period to this. With no easy way to check, others are prone to expectation bias - if they get the answer they want they believe it, but it could be wrong.
As for other standards, there is a commercial certification body called Spreadsheet Safe (spreadsheetsafe.com) that offers a training course followed by an online multiple-choice quiz where the pass requirement is 70%. (Disclaimer: I am one of their accredited trainers and the content remarkably resembles my book "Spreadsheet Check and Control") . A number of public sector bodies who are really motivated to avoid embarrassing mistakes put new hires through this each year.
Basically, people don't know what they don't know, and often simple tools and shortcuts to check your own work are most effective because they are easy to adopt and embed the habit of self-reflection on your work.
So, have I got this right. Using Excel is OK if I attend a course given by someone whose qualification is that they were self taught (or better still that they hold a qualification issued by the people selling the software and with a vested interest in you using it).
The fact that I am self taught and have been using it for longer than the instructor on the course has been alive, have written a software package using Excel that sold many thousand copies across England Ireland and Germany and because of my Maths degree actually understand the principles and formulae used in spreadsheets, is not as a good as attending a course that does not have any validated exam!
The words twaddle and self-interest are very mild but I can not think of anything stronger that the moderator will leave.