This Year’s 10 Best Excel Highlights

Over the last year, the Excel Community has continued to grow and now exceeds 40,000 members, keeping its spot as one of ICAEW’s largest communities, but also one of the largest communities of active Excel users in the world!

As the community grows, so does Excel’s functionality. This year we have seen significant changes, including the integration of AI through Copilot in the Microsoft Suite and a new COPILOT function within Excel itself. We've also noticed an increasing range of use cases for the new GROUPBY and PIVOTBY functions, along with the introduction of features like TRIMRANGE and the focus cell. Our aim is to keep you updated with the latest and greatest tips and guidance on using both new features and existing tools more effectively. But first, let’s review some highlights from this year.

Our Top 10

1. Copilot and Excel

   Earlier this year, David Fortin, CPA, Microsoft MVP, and a leading expert on Copilot in Excel, joined us for a webinar to share his insights on enhancing Copilot’s effectiveness in Excel. He emphasised that Copilot performs best with structured data, so it’s important to format your data into tables before getting started. Once your data is organised this way, you can use Copilot to ask questions about your spreadsheet and generate charts more effectively.

   Later this year, Microsoft also announced the launch of the new COPILOT function in Excel. While it’s currently only available in beta channels, the function will allow users to prompt its AI model from directly within the cell. While we’ve yet to see what this will look like in practice, Microsoft has suggested that it will be best suited for scenarios where natural language understanding can provide value. This is definitely one to watch for now!

2. Reaching the #500th tip milestone!

   More than a decade has passed since the Excel Community published Tip #1, in a series designed to help members improve their spreadsheet skills with bite-sized, easily applicable tips and tricks. To celebrate the publication of the #500th Tip, Ben Ducker, a member of our community’s advisory group, shared with us how investing time to learning has been crucial in his journey toward Excel mastery.

3. Excel turns 40!

   We celebrated Excel’s 40th birthday and four decades of progress with a special event at Chartered Accountants’ Hall. More than 70 members joined us to hear Chris Webb, Principal Program Manager at Microsoft, present innovative ways to work with data in Excel. The evening also featured one of the only stand-up comedy acts about Excel, led by Microsoft MVP and comedian David Benaim, and of course finished with cake!

4. Could GROUPBY and PIVOTBY replace PivotTables?

   Undoubtedly, one of the most significant updates to Excel this decade is the introduction of the GROUPBY and PIVOTBY functions. We covered how these functions can replicate PivotTable functionality through formulas and, in some respects, perform even better! For example, GROUPBY and PIVOTBY can refresh automatically and can be used to generate any chart type. While these new functions promise an enhanced approach to data analysis and table creation, PivotTables are unlikely to be replaced any time soon. In certain situations, PivotTables remain easier to set up and are more user-friendly for aggregating dates and continuous variables. Microsoft hasn’t given up on the functionality either, as some users have spotted a new ‘AutoRefresh’ option for PivotTables in the Beta channel.

5. Power Query can help create data workflows

   Power Query is widely recognised as a powerful tool for data transformation within Excel. In this example, Excel Community advisory group member James Berridge demonstrates how to standardise the formatting of a general ledger from a commonly used accounting package using Power Query by fixing and standardising headers, filtering data to extract transaction rows, and creating additional columns. When you’ve done this once, the same template can be used repeatedly to automate the process and save time the next time!

6. Introducing TRIMRANGE

   Our tips and tricks this year covered a range of functionality including one of Excel’s newer functions, TRIMRANGE, that allows users to easily exclude leading or trailing blank rows or columns in a range. However, this isn’t just a new function, as alongside TRIMRANGE Microsoft have introduced a whole new element to formula syntax, trim references, which are essentially TRIMRANGE shortcuts that can be used to simplify your formula.

7. Discovering the Excel ribbons in bitesize tutorials

   This year, our ever-popular lunch and learn series returned with John Tennent, Chartered Accountant and Founder of Corporate Edge, taking us on a guided tour of the lesser known but incredibly useful features and functionality tucked away in the Excel ribbons! He impressed attendees by demonstrating how features that are at times overlooked, such as named ranges, flash fill, sparklines and more can be used and applied to enhance spreadsheet use.

8. Keeping focus

   The ability to keep track of where you are in a spreadsheet has long been a challenge for Excel users, particularly in large, heavily populated spreadsheets. So much so that Microsoft even published some sample VBA to automatically apply formatting to the selected cell, row or column. It’s perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that native functionality to achieve this has now been introduced. The new focus cell functionality highlights the row and column of the active cell, allowing users to easily navigate through large sets of data – and what’s more, it now turns on by default when you use Find and Replace.

9. Global Excel Summit 2025

   As our community surpasses 40,000 members, one of our goals has been to provide our members with opportunities to attend in-person events to network and learn from a wide range of experts in this space. This year, our community partnered with the Global Excel Summit, an award-winning conference for Excel enthusiasts. The conference featured some of the top names in the world of Excel, as well as some popular ICAEW members and Excel Community contributors. We captured insights on a range of topics, including the latest Excel functionality, principles for best practice, and the skills required to advance in Excel.

   The conference in 2026 is scheduled to take place in London on 19 and 20 May. Excel Community members get an exclusive discount on tickets to attend the conference. If you plan on attending, we look forward to seeing you there!

10. The tips you need for printing your data

    If you've ever needed to print a spreadsheet for an important meeting but felt overwhelmed by all the print settings in Excel, you're not alone. Tom Edmunds, Excel Community advisory group member, covers how managing less data on a page can make things simpler than trying to fit everything at once, alongside some other useful tricks to make the most of the space on your paper.

Looking ahead

Next year, as more functions and features continue to be released and become more widely available in Excel, we will continue to share use cases and practical examples in new and creative ways for our members to make the most of them.

Moreover, we understand that financial modelling is a crucial area in how Excel is used. As a result, last year we updated our ‘Financial Modelling Code’. In the coming year, we aim to expand our content in this area by delivering additional webinars and articles designed to support both those new to financial modelling and more experienced professionals seeking to refine their models and further develop their skills.

And we’ll continue to prioritise your favourite types of content on the fundamentals! We're excited to bring our members a fresh take on our most popular webinars, such as the Tips and Tricks Live sessions, the bitesize Lunch and Learn series, and our bi-yearly updates covering the latest in Excel. You can still choose between comprehensive hour-long interactive sessions, perfect for addressing your questions, or shorter, bitesize webinars designed to help you quickly learn handy new tips.

We recognise that our thought leadership is essential in offering broader guidance and best practice in using spreadsheets effectively. Next year, our focus will be on delivering an updated version of our ‘Spreadsheet Competency Framework’ to provide our members with an enhanced and modern structure for evaluating proficiency in using Excel. In 2026, we intend to cover more relevant content and topics through articles, interactive webinars, and on-demand content to help you Excel wherever you are in your professional and learning journey. If you have any thoughts or suggestions on what you’d like us to cover or would like to get involved to contribute to the success of the community, do drop us an email at excel@icaew.com. We’d be delighted to hear from you!