You can use Excel, or Word, or Outlook as a ledger, but that’s not what they are.
A ledger is a bookeeping tool. A spreadsheet is an accounting tool.
Spreadsheets became a lot easier to use when you could type them in and print them out, but when I started they were penciled in, then inked in. Nobody knows when the first reporting and planning accounting was done, but at least the Egyptions.