Don't go blaming Access.
I would expect a newbie user to excel would do things 'not the Excel way'?

In fact when I took over from a treasurer for SSAFA, he showed me his Excel workbook, where each day of the month was a column, a row was deposits and the row below it payments, and the row below that the difference. So three rows per client.
So he would enter £300 in, £142.50 out and then do the math and enter £157.50 in the Balance row.

ignoring the structure, I asked him 'You do know that excel can do that calculation for you, for the Balance?'. No, he did not.