Excel University Blog

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Jeff Lenning

Use Copilot Like Macros in Excel

By Jeff Lenning | July 28, 2026 |

This tutorial shows how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot like a reusable macro in Excel. Instead of writing VBA or building Power Query solutions, we describe a list of tasks in plain language, paste that list into Copilot, and let it take action directly in our workbook. Video Tutorial We walk through three real-world exercises…

Simplify Formulas with Copilot

By Jeff Lenning | July 21, 2026 |

Have you ever opened an old workbook and stared at a formula packed with nested RIGHT, LEN, FIND, INDEX, and MATCH functions, wondering if there is a cleaner way? There is. Copilot in Excel can read those legacy formulas, figure out exactly what they do, and replace them with modern Excel functions that are easier…

Using Copilot to Understand, Modify, and Document Complex Excel Formulas

By Jeff Lenning | July 14, 2026 |

Complex nested formulas can be intimidating. We have all opened a workbook and stared at a formula bar full of nested IFs, VLOOKUPs, and IFERRORs and had absolutely no idea what was going on. That is exactly the kind of situation where Copilot in Excel shines. In this tutorial, we walk through three exercises that…

Categorize Credit Card Charges with the COPILOT Function

By Jeff Lenning | July 7, 2026 |

Mapping credit card charges to GL accounts is one of those month-end tasks that is tedious enough once, and exponentially more painful every month after that. Raw credit card descriptions are cryptic, the volume is high, and the manual effort adds up fast. In this tutorial, we walk through three exercises that show how to…

Formula-Based Reports with SUMIFS in Excel

By Jeff Lenning | June 30, 2026 |

Pivot tables are great, but they do not always produce the exact report layout that corporate requires. When the format is locked in and a pivot table simply will not fit, we turn to formulas. In this tutorial, we walk through three exercises that show how to use the SUMIFS function to build formula-based reports…

Power Query, PivotTable, and Pivot Chart: A Month-End Workflow

By Jeff Lenning | June 23, 2026 |

Month-end reporting often means the same tasks, repeated every single month. We pull data from a CSV, clean it up, build a summary, and maybe add a chart. If we are doing all of that manually, we are leaving a lot of time on the table. In this tutorial, we cover a three-exercise workflow that…

How to Automatically Log QuickBooks Journal Entries into Excel Using Zapier

By Jeff Lenning | June 16, 2026 |

What if every new journal entry posted in QuickBooks Online landed in an Excel table automatically, no copy-paste required? In this tutorial we walk through exactly that workflow. We use Zapier to connect QuickBooks Online to an Excel workbook stored in OneDrive, loop through each journal entry line so it lands on its own row,…

Month-End Reconciliations with Power Query

By Jeff Lenning | June 9, 2026 |

Month-end reconciliations are a fact of life for anyone managing financial data. Whether we are comparing Shopify orders against QuickBooks invoices, matching a bank statement to a check register, or verifying inventory counts, the core task is always the same: take two lists and find what does not match. In this tutorial, we walk through…

FILTER with SEARCH

By Jeff Lenning | June 2, 2026 |

Mastering Excel FILTER: Advanced Filtering with Multiple Conditions and Partial Matches Excel’s FILTER function is a game-changer for dynamic data analysis. Not only does it allow us to extract data sets that meet specific criteria, but it also empowers us to layer multiple conditions using AND/OR logic and perform partial text matches with the SEARCH…

Edit with Copilot

By Jeff Lenning | May 26, 2026 |

Edit with Excel Copilot: Clean Data, Audit Formulas, and Create Pivot Tables If you’ve ever wished for an Excel helper that could quickly clean messy data, audit your formulas, or create robust pivot tables with a single prompt, you’re going to love Microsoft Copilot for Excel. Video Tutorial In today’s walkthrough, we’ll see how to…