I think it is very important, however, its significance is decreasing each day. I have always enjoyed a good spreadsheet. It is very likely that if you are an accountant (even if you are not) you have run numerous amortization schedules computing payments for a new house, investment, car payment or perhaps future value of money understanding the mystical calculation of compounding interest. It is fun but google can answer almost any financial question and google sheets is free with great functionality.
It is imperative that you understand Excel to be a functional accountant, however, the target users of the data that Excel produces is changing dramatically. Visualization and dynamic tools like Tableau make Excel graphs and charts look elementary. A lot of the data sets still have Excel sitting on the back-end accumulating data, but many visualization tools with dynamic dashboard features to forecast and articulate data is extremely important in the decision-making process.
If I was starting my first accounting job this fall, I would absolutely make sure that I understood and was very proficient in Excel. If I wanted to be a standout, I would be honing my skill sets with Azure, Zoom, Tableau and the similar tools to present data (accounting was big data before big data was popular!).
It likely goes without saying, but accounting has changed a lot in my 20 years of profession. In some respects, I don’t feel that I have kept up. Visualization tools are changing accounting, artificial intelligence (“AI”) could drastically change the accounting profession and major software companies are working with AI every day to reduce the mundane pieces of accounting that can be fraught with errors.
It is has been my experience that most accountants do not keep up with technology, I don’t have a good reason why. KEEP UP TO STAY RELEVANT. I never understood why it took years after the greatest Ponzi scheme in our nation’s history (Bernie Madoff) to actually prosecute the accountants. These were the folks that were maintaining the fraud (along with the coders), it had to be difficult and a lot of effort.
Large mistake if you do not embrace technology changes and use all tools & dashboards available to explain the financial story.