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• #Microsoft excel spreadsheet software series

In Excel, users can either import an existing dataset into a worksheet or build a dataset manually. While Excel and Tableau handle these tasks equally well, as the amount of data continues to increase in the accounting world, it may be advantageous for accountants to use Tableau due to its ability to handle large amounts of data (discussed below).īefore we jump into Tableau's advantages over Excel, let's cover a couple of tasks that Excel handles better.Įxcel offers great flexibility when creating or revising a dataset. Basic calculations, such as count, average, min, max, etc.Simple data manipulation, such as sorting.Since this article's main purpose is to compare and contrast Excel and Tableau and note the differences, we elaborate more on differences than on similarities, but the many tasks the applications do equally well include: For someone who's familiar with Excel, it may seem easier to use Excel, but a user can learn to perform these tasks just as easily, if not more easily, in Tableau.

Tableau."įor decades, Excel has been the primary tool ­accountants use to summarize or chart data. Let's look first at the strengths of each application in the table "Strengths of Excel vs.

COMPARING TABLEAU TO EXCELĪs mentioned, Tableau boasts a number of capabilities that Excel cannot match, while Excel shines in some scenarios that Tableau either can't handle well or at all. The market includes numerous competitors (see the sidebar "Spreadsheet and Visualization Applications," at bottom of page), though Tableau and Microsoft Power BI are probably the two biggest names (see the accompanying article, " Power BI: An Analytical View"). To help you understand the capabilities, limitations, and best use cases for Tableau, this article explores its differences from (and similarities with) Excel and also walks you through a simple use case with live data to demonstrate the power of its data visualization capabilities.īefore we jump into the details, it's important to note that Tableau is far from the only data visualization application available to CPAs. Excel can handle a number of tasks that Tableau either can't perform well or can't handle at all. The second thing to understand about Tableau is that it's not a spreadsheet replacement. Provided with a plethora of new visual insights, users can look to develop business intelligence. Data visualization programs empower CPAs and other users to render the results of analyses in sophisticated, easy- to- create charts that highlight many more aspects, or "views," of the data than plain tables. The first thing to understand about Tableau is that it is a data visualization program.

#Microsoft excel spreadsheet software series

The response came with a series of questions: How does Tableau compare to Excel? What can Tableau do that Excel can't? Could Tableau replace Excel for accountants, and, if so, why hasn't it yet? That's despite Tableau being a really cool tool - so cool, in fact, that we proposed writing a JofA article about it. (See " Beyond Spreadsheets: Technology Round Table, Part 1," JofA, April/May 2015.)įast- forward five years, and Excel is still going strong.

The first answer given was a product named Tableau. In 2015, for example, the JofA asked the participants in its annual technology roundtable what they saw as the future of the spreadsheet. Technology experts in the accounting profession have been predicting the demise of Microsoft Excel for years.