Much water has flowed under the bridge since Dan Bricklin, a Harvard student, created the first spreadsheet in 1978, marketed as VisiCalc. He was closely followed by none other than Bill Gates in 1982 with Multiplan, which was a commercial failure. However, the rest of the story is well known — 42 years later, Microsoft’s Excel remains the most popular spreadsheet program.
For payroll professionals, a core competency of excellence is leveraging technology. While there are several options to process payroll, Excel remains a powerful and cost-effective tool. It also integrates with othersoftware, such as human resources management and accounting systems. Mastering its features enables you to work more efficiently, enhance accuracy and contribute to organizational success.
The Evolution of the Simple Spreadsheet
Let’s begin by clarifying that we’re no longer talking about a simple spreadsheet, but rather, an integrated system that encompasses a plethora of possibilities.
Professionals who achieve the best results use spreadsheets as an integrated system rather than just a simple spreadsheet. For example:
- The savvy user who has taken the time to efficiently organize payroll-related data beforehand, whether downloaded or inputted, stores this data in a table with named fields. This practice makes it easier to create more dynamic and precise reports.
- While creating pivot tables is easy to accomplish, successful managers benefit from further customizing the display options so the synthesized data perfectly meets their needs.
Where to Start?
The spreadsheet developed by Microsoft was designed for use and development according to specific rules. Users who understand the rules can intuitively enhance their mastery of the software and the possibilities available.
The Excel structure is composed of many functionalities that can be found under:
- Ribbons: Each of the ribbons regroup functionalities by family and type, for example, Formulas, Page Layout, Insert, etc. There are some specific ribbons that only appear when you create an object or a chart so that you can modify that object.
- Context menus: When you right-click on different element in Excel (for example, a cell, a column or a row), a context menu appears. These context menus give you access to the most commonly used commands, which is sometimes faster that using the ribbon.
- Formulas and functions: Excel offers numerous formulas and built-in functions that help you automate complex calculations and validate data. Predefined formulas or functions like SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, and the many functions under Date & Time and Lookup & Reference categories, can be used to calculate total compensation, perform conditional calculations and more.
- Graphical elements: Charts are a good way to visualize your data to spot trends, patterns and discrepancies. Intermediate users can create pivot charts from pivot tables, which helps you quickly analyze and summarize more extensive datasets. These insights are critical for payroll professionals to accurately monitor expenses and labour costs.
Improving Knowledge and Skills
Technology will continue to evolve at an accelerating pace. This means not only more frequent updates for connected software, but also the addition of increasingly powerful features. In addition, payroll is seeing a significant increase in the amount and complexity of data to handle.
Payroll professionals must keep up. Plan to invest time now and in the future in improving your knowledge and skills, so you can ensure data integrity and accurate results for your employees and organizations.
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