Excel not closing when Access object w/ Excel OLE object closes due to design.

Cause:

Access does not close Microsoft Excel because Excel is a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) application. A MDI application allows users to open and edit more than one document at a time. Therefore, when the table, form, or report containing Excel objects is closed in Access, Excel will still be running to allow the editing of other documents. This is by design of Microsoft Access.

Solution:

To work around this behavior, select the 'File' menu in Excel and select 'Exit' to close the application manually.