Microsoft Excel is still alive and kicking at 40 - and it's surging in popularity as 82% of finance professionals report 'emotional attachment' to the spreadsheet software

Forty percent of finance professionals across the US and UK prefer Excel to other options, ranking it above ERP systems at 26% for financial planning. Accountants report 57% using Excel as their primary platform. Younger finance staff aged 22–32 show stronger affinity: 54% say they love Excel, 83% spend more than five hours daily in it, and 27% spend more than seven hours a day. Seventy-eight percent of younger professionals would decline or reluctantly accept jobs that ban Excel. Eighty-four percent expect Excel to remain as or become more important over the next decade, with many reporting emotional attachment and a common love/hate relationship.

"Analysis from Datarails found 40% of finance professionals across the US and UK prefer the spreadsheet software to other options, even ranking it higher than ERP systems at 26% for financial planning. Accountants were particularly keen, with 57% of respondents citing Excel as their go-to platform. Enthusiasm for the software varies across generations, however. More than half (54%) of 22-32-year-olds in the CFO's office said they love Excel, yet that fell to just 39% for both 33-50-year-olds and those older than 51."

""That love comes from experience," Datarails noted. "83% of younger users spend more than five hours each day in the spreadsheet, falling to only around 70% for older cohorts." "In fact, more than one in four (27%) of 22-32-year-olds spend more than seven hours a day in Excel. It essentially occupies their entire workday." Indeed, 78% of younger pros said they would either decline a job that banned Excel or accept it only grudgingly."

"Among Gen Z and Millennials, however, this figure rises, with 89% of respondents touting the platform's continued popularity and importance. "When we asked finance professionals to describe their relationship with Excel, 82% reported high or moderate emotional attachment," Datarails said. "But here's where it gets interesting: 43% describe the relationship as 'love/hate', calling it essential and reliable yet also frustrating and manual," said Datarails."

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