Excel University Blog

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Excel

PPMT Explained: Dynamic Loan Schedule

By Jeff Lenning | June 10, 2025 |

Managing loans and tracking monthly payments just got a whole lot easier. In this tutorial, we’ll explore the PPMT function in Excel—a lesser-known but incredibly powerful function that calculates the principal portion of a loan payment for a specific period. Even better, we’ll show how to transform this function into a fully dynamic loan amortization…

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How to Create a Live Search Box (no VBA)

By Jeff Lenning | June 3, 2025 |

Imagine typing just a few letters into an Excel cell and having a filtered list instantly appear—only showing the rows that match your search criteria. No scrolling, no manual filters, and best of all—no VBA. In this tutorial, we’ll walk through how to build a Live Search Box using formulas that dynamically filter a data…

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Grok Knows Excel

By Jeff Lenning | May 27, 2025 |

How to Use AI to Get Help With Formulas, VBA, and More As Excel users, we often find ourselves facing complex formulas we don’t understand, legacy VBA code we didn’t write, or questions like “how do I even do this?” Microsoft Copilot is a great option … but what if you don’t have a full…

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Use FV Like a Crystal Ball

By Jeff Lenning | May 20, 2025 |

Imagine having a financial crystal ball—something that gives us a glimpse into how our money could grow into the future. That’s exactly what Excel’s FV (Future Value) function offers. Whether we’re saving for retirement, planning an investment, or just trying to hit a savings goal, FV gives us the power to explore different scenarios and…

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Intro to AI Automation with Zapier

By Jeff Lenning | May 13, 2025 |

When it comes to automation, Excel users can certainly streamline tasks within the grid. But sometimes, we need to automate tasks outside of Excel—especially when it comes to integrating external tools and triggering actions automatically. That’s where Zapier comes in. In this post, we’ll take a beginner-friendly dive into Zapier’s AI automation capabilities by creating…

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PV: Value Your Money Now

By Jeff Lenning | May 6, 2025 |

Understanding the concept of present value can be one element in our financial decision making process. From evaluating loans and subscriptions to complex financial instruments like reverse mortgages, Excel’s PV function provides an accessible, effective tool for comparing future payments in today’s dollars. In this post, we’ll explore how to use the Excel PV function…

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RATE: Find Your Interest Rate

By Jeff Lenning | April 29, 2025 |

Understanding how to calculate interest rates is crucial for financial planning. Whether you’re determining the interest rate for a loan or projecting your investment growth, Excel’s RATE function is a powerful tool. In this post, we’ll explore how to use the RATE function to unlock hidden financial insights, covering loans, balloon payments, and investment goals.…

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NPER: Time Your Payoff

By Jeff Lenning | April 22, 2025 |

Managing finances effectively often requires understanding how long it will take to pay off a loan or reach a savings goal. Excel’s NPER function helps us determine the number of periods needed based on interest rate, payments, and loan amounts. Whether we’re looking at loans, mortgages, or investments, this function is crucial for financial planning.…

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How to Become a Millionaire with this Simple Formula (PMT)

By Jeff Lenning | April 15, 2025 |

Ever wondered how much you need to save each month to reach a financial goal, like becoming a millionaire? The PMT function in Excel can help you calculate that with just a few simple inputs. While the PMT function is traditionally used to calculate loan payments, we can also use it to determine how much…

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Getting Started with Excel Copilot

By Jeff Lenning | April 8, 2025 |

If you’ve ever wished Excel could just “do the work for you,” then Microsoft Copilot might be exactly what you need. This AI-powered assistant can generate formulas, analyze data, apply formatting, and even explain complex calculations—all with simple, natural-language commands. Want to access Copilot? Check out this Microsoft Office 365 Bundle which includes Copilot, Excel,…

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