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What is Excel and what is it used for?

Excel is a software program created by Microsoft in 1982 that uses spreadsheets to organize numbers and data using formulas and functions.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Excel allowed people to process and store data without coding. Then its popularity and continuous expansion made it the number one software for analysis and office work. Today, it is used by both small and large businesses to organize data and perform financial analysis.

Microsoft Excel is also used for:

Data input

Data management

Accounting

A financial analysis

Charts and graphs

Programming

Time management

Task management

Financial modeling

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

And almost everything that needs to be organized!

Here's how to learn Excel the fastest

Let's answer a few questions that can help you navigate how and for how long to learn Excel.

How long can you learn Excel?

Excel has a wide range of tools and functionalities that cover almost every aspect of business and meet the specific needs of users. Depending on the activity that a person performs at his workplace or even for personal needs, we have distinguished 3 levels of software proficiency and therefore the time it will take to reach them:

Level required to perform basic operations. Here we could include adding, moving and deleting columns, rows and cells, as well as applying basic formulas and functions for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, sorting. The optimal period for learning these fundamental operations, in our opinion, is 1 week. You could easily get them by watching the first 20 lessons completely free of the Excel Secrets course

Good professional level. Here we can add some more specific Excel functionality, including the application of some more complex formulas and functions such as COUNTIF, VLOOKUP, AVERAGE, etc. This level includes the skills to create data filters, create charts, and create links to external files. To reach this level, we estimate that it takes 2 months, the same as a full online course in Aula. The Complete Secrets of Excel Course will do a perfect job for you for this purpose.

Expert level. Few people ever reach this level because Excel is constantly expanding its functionality and consistent learning and upgrading of knowledge is required. It takes at least 5 years of hands-on experience with the program to be called an "expert". At Aula, we have several courses that will help you reach this level: "Excel Formulas and Functions", "Analyses with Excel", "Excel Pivot & Power Pivot", "VBA for Excel".

Why invest time learning Excel?

Excel is used in almost every profession, and therefore a good knowledge of the software is now a prerequisite for many companies. It is a key business tool that has been refined over the years and has many amazing capabilities that are an integral part of running a company.

Here's what a good knowledge of Excel will bring you:

Better chance of getting hired or promoted.

Knowing Excel is extremely valuable to employers and can increase your chances of being hired by demonstrating that you have great analytical skills. Proficiency in Excel can make you a valuable asset to the company. For this reason, many employers specifically require Excel skills as part of the job specification. On the other hand, the ability to extract information from data, on the basis of which to draw conclusions and make decisions, could move you up the hierarchy of the company you work for.

Learning Excel is an investment in your development and growth that will help you stay ahead of the market and stay competitive.

It will help you work more efficiently and be more productive.

Excel helps you manipulate large amounts of data through options for filtering, sorting, performing calculations, analyses, charting, formatting, and more. Compatibility with other office applications also means you can quickly share data via Excel or copy it to Word or PowerPoint for reports and presentations.

Knowing a large part of the program's functionalities and being able to apply them will help you work faster and easier, which will undoubtedly bring you satisfaction.

You will improve the quality of your work.

Excel can improve the quality of the work you do by allowing you to easily create beautiful dashboards, reports, interfaces, charts, and well-formatted data. A good knowledge of the program will reduce the possibility of making mistakes that could be extremely serious, but even if this happens, you will be able to easily identify where the problem is and fix it.