does the mac laptop have EXCEL

Macs don't come with an application like Excel, so you have to install one.

You have different applications:

• Microsoft Office for Mac. It includes Excel, so it could be the best solution for you if you are going to work with Excel files > http://www.microsoft.com
• Apple iWork. It's the Apple's Office version, cheaper than Office and available at the App Store, but it works worse with Office documents.
• LibreOffice. It's a free application which works correctly with Office documents, so I recommend you to try this app first

Excel is the name of a spreadsheet program, which Excel is the one produced by Microsoft and most widely used in the business world so the files are compatible with other Windows PC users.

There is a Mac version of Excel in OfficeMac suite, however it's not 100% as compatible as Excel on Windows thus there is problems with formatting when transfering files between the two platforms. It's payware.

If your employer is providing a machine or your having to work with other Windows PC users and Excel, it's likley best to use a Windows PC with Excel, else you can buy a Mac and install Windows 7 (what the business world is using now, not Windows 8) into a virtual machine program or into Apple's BootCamp and boot directly into Windows and run Excel there.

Windows in BootCamp or Virtual Machine?

If your just learning to use a spreadsheet or using it for your own use or not transfering files too much to buisness users, then the free LibreOffice is excellent choice as it's free and you can incude a free installer along with your files to other Mac, Windows or Linux users and they can edit your files. Also it works with Office/Excel files too.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

Apple has their own called Numbers and it's different and exclusive only to Mac's, it's not the best choice but it's avaiable.

If your running 10.8 Mountain Lion, you might need to set Downloads to "Anywhere" in System Preferences > Security > General temporarily.