Copilot in Excel

Hello everyone, this is part 9. series of posts Let me show you a few things you can do with Copilot in Excel.

I need a quick estimate of book sales for the remainder of the fiscal year. Let’s take a look at how Copilot can help. We recently completed the first quarter of our fiscal year, and would like to use our annual growth rate from the first quarter to estimate the remaining three quarters of the year.

Table of Book Sales by Category (Biography, Children’s, Comics, Crime Fiction, Young Adult Fiction) containing the Category (FYFY24Q1, FY24Q2, FY24Q3, FY24Q4, FY25Q1) columns.

I ask the co-pilot:

We estimate this by using the growth between FY24Q1 and FY25Q1, adding a new column for the second through fourth quarters of FY25.

Copilot in Excel window showing prompt above and response below

Looking at K16:P21, there are three columns of formulas to review and insert into columns Q, R, and S.

1. FY25Q2

We forecast revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2025 by adjusting revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2024 based on growth rates between fiscal 2024 and the first quarter of fiscal 2025.

=[@FY24Q2]*(1+(([@FY25Q1]-[@FY24Q1])/[@FY24Q1]))

2. FY25Q3

We forecast third quarter fiscal 2025 revenue by adjusting third quarter fiscal 2024 revenue based on the percentage change between the first quarter of fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025.

=[@FY24Q3]*(1+(([@FY25Q1]-[@FY24Q1])/[@FY24Q1]))

3. FY25Q4

We forecast revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 by adjusting revenue for the same quarter in fiscal 2024 based on growth rates between fiscal 2024 and the first quarter of fiscal 2025.

=[@FY24Q4]*(1+(([@FY25Q1]-[@FY24Q1])/[@FY24Q1]))

Click the Show Description arrow to see what the first suggested formula does.

Copilot in Excel window showing explanation of first formula (text below)

=[@FY24Q2]*(1+(([@FY25Q1]-[@FY24Q1])/[@FY24Q1]))

Use the following steps to estimate revenue for “FY25Q2” in the table.

• Multiply the values ​​in the “FY24Q2” column by the result of the following calculation:
• Subtract the value in column “FY24Q1” from the value in column “FY25Q1”.
• Divide the result by the value in the “FY24Q1” column to find the growth rate.
• Adjust the “FY24Q2” value accordingly by adding 1 (no units) to the growth rate.

That sounds correct, so click the Insert Column button to add three new calculated columns.

Table of Book Sales by Category with new columns for FY25Q2, FY25Q3, and FY25Q4

You now have some basic estimates that you can use to discuss with your team this afternoon.

Stay tuned.

Microsoft Excel Team

*Disclaimer: If you’ve tried these types of messages and they don’t work as expected, it’s most likely due to our gradual feature rollout process. Please try again in a few weeks.