ARTICLE

Copilot in Microsoft Excel for financial reporting: what it does, what it needs, what to check

Copilot in Microsoft Excel can write formulas, build PivotTables and charts, and summarise data from a plain-language request, Thai included. Microsoft also says it can make mistakes or misread data, and that anything it creates should be checked before you rely on it. This is a practical summary for financial reporting, as of October 2026.

What Copilot in Excel does

Open it from the Copilot icon at the lower right of Excel and describe what you need. Microsoft lists editing sheets, generating data and formulas, creating charts, PivotTables and shapes, finding insights, highlighting, sorting and filtering, web search, importing data from other workbooks, and repeatable tasks.

Copilot changes the workbook with Excel’s own features, so what you get is ordinary formulas, PivotTables and charts you can keep editing, and the pane shows the steps it took.

Copilot in Excel has three modes. Edit mode changes the workbook directly, Plan mode writes out a plan before any edit, and Chat mode analyses without touching the workbook. For a report file other people rely on, start in Chat or Plan and switch to Edit once the plan looks right.

Windows, Mac and Excel for the web support all three modes; iPad supports Chat and Plan; iPhone and Android support Chat only. You can also set rules for Copilot to follow, review the history of the changes it made, and save repeatable work as Skills. Microsoft’s “Get started with Copilot in Excel” page covers each of these.

What you need first

Microsoft’s FAQ lists the qualifying plans: Microsoft 365 Personal or Family with an AI credits plan, Microsoft 365 Premium, a commercial Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription, or a business plan eligible for Copilot Chat. If the Copilot icon is missing, your plan may not include it or your organisation may have turned it off. Prices and terms change often, so check Microsoft’s pages before buying.

Two conditions catch finance workbooks: Copilot only edits when Calculation Options is set to Automatic, and if your organisation requires check-out for editing in SharePoint, Copilot on Windows and Mac will not work.

Thai is on the list of supported languages, so you can prompt in Thai. Type table names, column headers and version names such as Actual or Budget exactly as they appear in the file, so Copilot does not have to guess.

The =COPILOT() function has been retired

Many tutorials still tell you to type =COPILOT() into a cell. Microsoft says that starting September 14, 2026 the function is no longer available in Excel. Results already calculated stay in the file as cached values, but the moment a cell recalculates it returns #NAME?.

If any of your report files used it, search formulas with Ctrl+F and convert those cells to values before you send the file on. For the same jobs, such as summarising or classifying text, use the Copilot pane instead.

Where it helps in finance work, and where it slips

Worth handing to Copilot: drafting a SUMIFS or XLOOKUP from a description, a monthly PivotTable split by version, an actual-versus-budget chart, explaining a long formula in a workbook you inherited, and cleaning text in exported data.

The most common slip in finance data is the version. The T_PL_Data table in our sample file holds Actual, Budget, Latest Estimate and Prior Forecast in one table. Ask “what was August revenue?” without naming a version and the answer may add them all together. The next is the sign of a variance: spending above budget is not good news, see budget variance.

Checking Copilot’s work before it reaches management

Ask Copilot to put results in as formulas rather than typed values, then click into them and check that the version and date filters are what you meant. Compare totals with a figure you already know, such as the month’s revenue on the P&L. If they differ, stop there.

To find out how well Copilot reads your financial data, ask it questions you already know the answers to. The next article gives a set of them, with the correct answers from a sample workbook you can download free.

Common questions

Can I prompt Copilot in Excel in Thai?

Yes. Thai is on Microsoft’s list of supported languages. Type table names, column headers and version names exactly as they appear in the file.

Why do my =COPILOT() cells show #NAME?

Microsoft retired the function on September 14, 2026. Cached results remain, but a cell returns #NAME? when it recalculates. Convert those cells to values and use the Copilot pane instead.

Can I use Copilot in Excel on a phone?

Partly. iPhone and Android have Chat mode only; iPad has Chat and Plan. For Copilot to edit the file, use Windows, Mac or Excel for the web.

Can Copilot’s numbers go straight into a management report?

After checking. Ask for formulas, confirm the version and date filters, and tie totals to a figure you already know. Microsoft itself says to review everything Copilot creates.