Copilot in Excel includes built-in skills for accounting, financial modeling, investment analysis, workbook formatting, and other common tasks. This article describes skills created and managed by Microsoft and other built-in skills, grouped by task.
To use a skill, enter @ followed by the skill name in your prompt to Copilot, such as @clean-data.
Tip
To learn more about skills and how to use them, see Use skills with Copilot in Excel to complete repeatable tasks.
Skills created by Microsoft
Microsoft creates skills to support accounting, automation, data and analysis, formatting, and visualization work in Excel.
Accounting
Use accounting skills to manage financial close, reconcile accounts, prepare financial reports, support audits and compliance, and analyze taxes, budgets, and variances. Find these skills in the Accounting folder in the Manage plugins & skills dialog.
Note
Accounting skills are rolling out to the Microsoft Frontier program. For information about the Frontier program, see Explore early AI access in Microsoft 365.
| Skill |
Description |
|---|---|
| audit-support | Helps plan and document internal and external audits by selecting samples, testing controls, and tracing transactions to source records. Tracks audit requests and records test results, exceptions, findings, and supporting evidence for review. |
| budget-and-forecast | Creates budgets and forecasts from actual results and departmental inputs. Combines income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow forecasts, compares plans with targets, and analyzes assumptions and scenarios to support planning decisions. |
| close-management | Organizes and tracks month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close activities, including checklists, task owners, due dates, and approvals. Identifies overdue or blocked tasks, open reconciliations, and unposted entries, and prepares close-status summaries for review. |
| compliance-support | Helps test accounting controls, review adherence to policies, and prepare compliance workpapers and regulatory reports. Documents test results and supporting evidence, identifies exceptions, and tracks corrective actions, owners, and due dates. |
| financial-statements | Creates and analyzes financial statements, reporting packages, disclosures, and supporting schedules from source balances. Calculates dollar and percentage variances, identifies significant changes or unsupported balances, and documents assumptions and adjustments for review. |
| reconciliation | Compares balances and transactions across the general ledger, subledgers, bank statements, vendor records, and other sources. Matches transactions, identifies discrepancies such as missing records or duplicate entries, and prepares proposed corrections and supporting documentation for review. |
| tax-preparation | Prepares tax analyses, supporting calculations, and workpapers for tax planning, compliance, and audits. Helps estimate payments, reconcile tax accounts, track filing requirements, and identify issues and due dates in tax notices. Documents assumptions and supporting evidence for review. |
| variance-analysis | Compares actual results with budgets, forecasts, or prior periods and explains differences by price, volume, mix, rate, or timing. Calculates dollar and percentage variances, creates waterfall and bridge charts, and drafts explanations of significant or unexplained changes for review. |
Important
Copilot doesn't provide accounting, tax, audit, or financial advice or professional determinations, and isn't a substitute for the judgment of a qualified accounting or tax professional. AI-generated content might be inaccurate or incomplete. Review and verify all output, including calculations, account mappings, and tax treatments, against source records and applicable accounting standards, tax laws, and your organization's policies before you rely on it, post entries to a system of record, file returns, or share financial information. Copilot in Excel doesn't replace your organization's internal controls, review, or approval processes.
Automation
Use automation skills to turn recurring Excel workflows into custom skills that you can save, refine, and reuse. Find these skills in the Automation folder in the Manage plugins & skills dialog.
skill-builder
Use skill-builder to create custom skills from your instructions, previous prompts, or examples of completed work. You can also complete a multistep workflow with Copilot and then ask Copilot to save it as a skill. skill-builder captures the relevant context, steps, decision logic, and expected output.
Save what we just did to a new skill.
Create a skill that formats monthly sales reports as tables, highlights negative variances, and adds a summary chart.
Before saving the skill to OneDrive, Copilot lets you preview and refine it. After you approve the skill, Copilot saves and verifies it. You can then update the skill and reuse it for similar workflows. To let Copilot use it automatically when relevant, turn it on in the Manage plugins & skills dialog. To learn more about custom skills, see Create custom skills.
The skill-builder skill is enabled by default in Copilot in Excel.
Note
The skill-builder skill is rolling out to production and may not be available for all customers.
Data and analysis
Use data and analysis skills to find and correct data issues that can affect calculations, reports, and insights. Find these skills in the Data and Analysis folder in the Manage plugins & skills dialog.
clean-data
Use clean-data to find and correct issues that can affect formulas, lookups, PivotTables, reports, and AI-generated insights. This skill checks relevant data for issues such as extra spaces, inconsistent text and number formats, inconsistent dates, duplicate values, and values stored as the wrong data type. It explains what it found and why it matters, and then proposes corrections in the workbook. Review the proposed fixes and select which changes to apply.
The clean-data skill is enabled by default in Copilot in Excel.
Note
The clean-data skill is rolling out to production and may not be available for all customers.
Formatting
Use formatting skills to apply brand guidelines and Excel themes throughout your workbooks, including charts, tables, and cells. Find these skills in the Formatting folder in the Manage plugins & skills dialog.
brandkit
Use brandkit to apply your brand guidelines throughout a workbook. This skill applies styles such as color palettes, typography, and header appearance to charts, tables, and other elements in your workbooks. It can reference the brand kit created by your brand manager to apply guidelines and insert logos. For more information about setting up a brand kit for Copilot, see Create and manage official Brand kits in the Microsoft Copilot app.
The brandkit skill is enabled by default in Copilot in Excel.
Note
The brandkit skill is rolling out to production and may not be available for all customers.
theme-design
Use theme-design to apply an Excel theme throughout a workbook. This skill follows best practices from the Excel design team and uses your workbook's structure and content to choose a theme. It styles charts, tables, and cells, including borders, color hierarchy, and color contrast.
The theme-design skill is enabled by default in Copilot in Excel.
Note
The theme-design skill is rolling out to production and may not be available for all customers.
Visualization
Use visualization skills to create charts from your data, improve existing charts, and choose chart types. Find these skills in the Visualization folder in the Manage plugins & skills dialog.
chart-design
Use chart-design to create charts from raw data or edit existing charts in Excel. This skill helps improve existing charts by adding chart and axis titles, legends, data labels, and other elements. It also recommends new chart types based on your data.
The chart-design skill is disabled by default.
Other built-in skills
Copilot in Excel includes a number of built-in skills to support accounting and finance scenarios.
Accounting skills
| Skill |
Description |
|---|---|
| journal-entry | Prepares journal entries and supporting schedules for recurring transactions, accruals, reversals, corrections, and other accounting adjustments. Checks that debits and credits balance, reconciles entries to source records, and documents calculations, business purpose, and supporting evidence for review. |
Finance skills
| Skill |
Description |
|---|---|
| 3-statements | Completes an existing three-statement financial model template with income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow data. |
| buyer-list | Creates and organizes a list of potential acquirers for a sell-side merger and acquisition process. Evaluates strategic buyers and financial sponsors based on strategic rationale, financial capacity, and merger and acquisition activity. |
| catalyst-calendar | Creates and maintains a calendar of market events, such as earnings, conferences, product launches, regulatory decisions, and macroeconomic events, that might affect covered positions. |
| check-model | Debugs and audits financial models for circular references, broken formulas, hardcoded overrides, balance sheet imbalances, cash flow mismatches, and logic gaps. Helps review models that don't balance, produce unexpected results, or need validation before distribution. |
| comps-analysis | Creates comparable-company analyses with operating metrics, valuation multiples, and statistical benchmarks for valuation, peer comparison, and other investment workflows. |
| datapack-builder | Converts financial information from confidential information memorandums, offering memorandums, and regulatory filings into standardized, formatted Excel data packs for due diligence and investment committee reviews. |
| dd-checklist | Creates due diligence checklists based on a target company's sector, deal type, complexity, and known concerns. Tracks major workstreams, requests, outstanding items, status, and potential risks. |
| dd-meeting-prep | Prepares targeted questions, relevant benchmarks, and potential risks for due diligence meetings, such as management presentations, expert calls, customer reference calls, and advisor sessions. |
| deal-sourcing | Identifies potential private equity investments based on criteria such as sector, company size, growth, geography, and ownership. Creates a target list, checks for existing relationships, and drafts personalized founder outreach. |
| deal-tracker | Tracks transactions, progress, milestones, and action items throughout an investment banking deal process. |
| idea-generation | Develops potential investment ideas from market, company, or thematic research and organizes them into a shortlist for further investigation. |
| lbo-model | Completes leveraged buyout model templates with operating, financing, and exit assumptions. Adds formulas, validates calculations, applies professional formatting, and evaluates potential investment returns. |
| merger-model | Creates accretion and dilution analyses for mergers and acquisitions, including pro forma earnings per share, synergy sensitivities, and purchase price allocation. |
| model-update | Updates financial models with new company results, management guidance, macroeconomic changes, or revised assumptions. Revises estimates, recalculates valuations, and identifies material changes. |
| portfolio-monitoring | Compares a private equity portfolio company's financial results and key performance indicators with its plan to identify variances and potential risks. |
| portfolio-rebalance | Analyzes portfolio allocation drift and recommends trades across accounts while considering tax implications, transaction costs, and wash-sale rules. |
| returns-analysis | Models private equity investment returns and creates sensitivity analyses for internal rate of return and multiple on invested capital across entry multiple, leverage, exit multiple, and growth assumptions. |
| tax-loss-harvesting | Identifies and prioritizes unrealized losses in taxable accounts, recommends replacement securities, and tracks wash-sale windows. |
| thesis-tracker | Tracks an investment thesis as new company results, market events, and research become available, and evaluates whether the latest evidence supports it. |
| unit-economics | Evaluates revenue quality and customer economics for private equity targets, especially software, subscription, and recurring-revenue businesses. Analyzes annual recurring revenue cohorts, customer lifetime value compared with acquisition cost, retention, payback periods, and margins. |