Excel University Blog
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Comparing two lists in Excel is one of the most common tasks in accounting, finance, and operations. Whether we need to confirm that every open invoice has been paid, find bank deposits missing from the books, or run a full two-way reconciliation, the right formulas turn a manual, error-prone process into a clean, dynamic exception…
Excel Copilot is a powerful assistant, but left to its own devices it tends to improvise. Sometimes that works great. Other times, not so much. The good news is that we can take control by setting up workbook-scoped rules and custom skills. Rules tell Copilot how to behave inside a specific workbook. Skills tell it…
I’m thrilled to introduce this year’s Excel University Scholarship recipients! These awards are made possible by the generous support of the Excel University Alumni Association. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to make this program a reality for the past 10 years. This was our most competitive year yet — 91 applications, the most…
This post is dedicated to the memory of Jeff Sharp, an active member of the Excel University community and a generous contributor who freely shared his knowledge with fellow Excel enthusiasts. Last year, he sent me this CUBE function example he built, suggesting it might make a good blog post. Jeff, this one’s for you.…
One of the most powerful things we can do with Copilot in Excel is teach it our preferences once and have it follow them every time. Rather than spelling out formatting rules in every single prompt, we can set up standing personalization instructions that Copilot applies automatically. In this tutorial, we cover two approaches: global…
Multi-criteria lookups are one of the most common challenges Excel users face. Whether we need to find a single matching record, retrieve a full list of matching rows, or sum up values across multiple conditions, the approach changes depending on the goal. In this tutorial, we walk through three exercises that show how Copilot in…
For accountants building financial reports in Excel, choosing between a PivotTable and a formula-based approach is one of the most consequential decisions you’ll make. The wrong choice creates reports that break on refresh, resist auditing, or require manual rework every month. The right choice depends on three factors: whether your output format is locked, how…
When you need to reconcile two lists in Excel — matching transactions, comparing account balances, or identifying exceptions — Power Query offers a more reliable and repeatable approach than manual VLOOKUP formulas. For CPAs and accountants who run the same reconciliation every month, Power Query turns a tedious, error-prone process into a structured, refreshable workflow.…
Excel remains the most widely used tool for financial reporting among CPAs and accountants — and when built correctly, an Excel-based financial report can pull updated data, recalculate automatically, and deliver consistent, audit-ready output every single period. The key is moving beyond static, manually updated spreadsheets toward structured, refreshable report models that reduce errors and…
Copilot in Excel can save a tremendous amount of time on routine finance tasks. In this tutorial, we walk through three exercises that show how Copilot can assign expense categories from a reference table, generate a formula-based summary, build a PivotTable report, and even write step-by-step documentation for future updates. If your team processes expense…