ICAEW.com works better with JavaScript enabled.

Excel Community articles

Read the latest support and guidance from the Excel Community, including our very popular Tip of the Week series.
Displaying 1-20 of 931 results
Headshot of Mark Proctor
Exclusive Get faster Power Query refreshes with query folding
  • 21 Oct 2026
  • Mark Proctor
Power Query has a feature called query folding. Using it effectively can result in faster refresh times. In this article, Mark Proctor returns to look at how query folding works, and how we can benefit from it.
David Beniam
NEW TECH FEATURES New tech features for June-Sep 2026: Excel, Teams, Google Sheets, Chat GPT, M365, Power BI, Canva, Zoom ++
  • 12 Oct 2026
  • David Benaim
Our digest of new features across Microsoft 365 & other business tech products in written, image & video format covering the last three months.
Simon Hurst
Exclusive Number formats again – making a dash for it
  • 12 Oct 2026
  • Simon Hurst
We cover the subject of Excel number formats with some regularity in the community, but with thousands of new members joining each year, it’s a subject worth returning to. In the first part of this short series, we looked at the creation of a custom number format that is particularly suitable for those working with financial data and in the second part we considered how to make the new custom format as easy to apply as possible. This time we are going to look at some of the more obscure capabilities of custom number formats.
Liam Bastick
Exclusive Any Interest in Mortgage Schedules?
  • 24 Sep 2026
  • Liam Bastick
Debt schedules are a staple of financial models. Liam Bastick constructs a monthly mortgage schedule using formulae only.
Giles Male and Fay Bordbar
Exclusive Curiosity, community and competition: lessons and LAMBDAs from the UK Excel Esports Finals
  • 22 Sep 2026
  • Giles Male and Fay Bordbar
Giles Male and Fay Bordbar recount their experience of organising the UK Excel Esports Finals and bringing together 31 competitors for a day of problem-solving, learning and community. The event highlighted the enduring value of curiosity, critical thinking and continuous improvement in an AI-driven world.
A person holding a tablet device displaying various graphs
INSIGHTS VIEWPOINT INSIGHTS SPECIAL How to Excel: XLOOKUP, the flexible lookup function of choice
  • 16 Sep 2026
  • ICAEW Insights
Excel expert Giles Male explains why XLOOKUP is one of the most versatile functions for finding information in a spreadsheet.
Simon Hurst
Exclusive Number formats again – a custom number format can be just a click away
  • 07 Sep 2026
  • Simon Hurst
We cover the subject of Excel number formats with some regularity in the Excel community. In the second part of this short series we are going to consider how to make the new custom format as easy to apply as possible.
A person holding a tablet device displaying various graphs
INSIGHTS VIEWPOINT INSIGHTS SPECIAL How to Excel: Using INDEX as Excel’s grid reference function
  • 03 Sep 2026
  • ICAEW Insights
The INDEX function comes into its own on two-dimensional grids, explains Excel expert Giles Male. Find out how INDEX works in grids, why it is still useful and how it can return whole rows and columns.
A person holding a tablet device displaying various graphs
INSIGHTS VIEWPOINT INSIGHTS SPECIAL How to Excel: COUNT, COUNTA and COUNTIFS functions
  • 27 Aug 2026
  • ICAEW Insights
In the latest instalment of our How to Excel series, Excel expert Fay Bordbar looks at three functions that are best deployed for counting tasks, but which serve subtly different purposes.
Liam Bastick
Exclusive Returning a subset of data with just one formula
  • 26 Aug 2026
  • Liam Bastick
This month, I thought I’d be lazier than usual – if that’s possible! I want to return selected data from a larger data table with just one formula.
Giles Male and Fay Bordbar
Exclusive Edinburgh Fringe: Excel comedy laced with tips, and flat earth believers
  • 26 Aug 2026
  • Giles Male and Fay Bordbar
Excel experts Giles Male and Fay Bordbar, founders of ‘Excel on the Road’, reflect on how a trip to the Edinburgh Fringe, featuring comedy, spreadsheets and a flooded venue, offers lessons in making technical ideas engaging, memorable and resilient to the unexpected.
Simon Hurst
Exclusive Number formats again – creating a custom number format
  • 21 Aug 2026
  • Simon Hurst
We cover the subject of Excel number formats with some regularity in the community, but with thousands of new members joining each year, it’s a subject worth returning to. In this first part of a short series, we will look at why number formatting is so important and how to master its intricacies.
A person holding a tablet device displaying various graphs
INSIGHTS VIEWPOINT INSIGHTS SPECIAL How to Excel: don’t abuse the IF Function
  • 20 Aug 2026
  • ICAEW Insights
Excel’s IF function is one of the most important in the finance profession's modelling arsenal, but can tip over into being over-used, adding complexity and unreliability to your spreadsheet. 
Headshot of Bani Lamba
EXCEL TIP OF THE WEEK A refreshed look at defining spreadsheet competency
  • 19 Aug 2026
  • Bani Lamba
Spreadsheet skills are often learned on the job, making it hard to define what “good” looks like. ICAEW’s recently updated Spreadsheet Competency Framework brings consistency and a more practical way to assessing and developing skills, reflecting how new Excel functionality, automation and AI are changing the way we work.
A person holding a tablet device displaying various graphs
INSIGHTS VIEWPOINT INSIGHTS SPECIAL 10 Copilot use cases for Excel
  • 13 Aug 2026
  • ICAEW Insights
Copilot boasts an array of prompts and functions that can give accountants’ Excel work a real boost. Here are Microsoft MVP David Benaim’s picks of the best.
David Beniam
Exclusive Excel speed up productivity tricks - formulas
  • 11 Aug 2026
  • David Benaim
In the third of this series David Benaim shares some formula speed up ticks straight from his Edinburgh Fringe Excel -related comedy show
Ruth Butler-Lee
Exclusive EXCEL TIP OF THE WEEK Excel Tips and Tricks #507 - Using Excel internationally part 1: why some functions are not good travellers
  • 06 Aug 2026
  • Ruth Butler-Lee
Welcome back to Excel Tips and Tricks! This time, we have a General level post exploring what to watch out for when using and working with spreadsheets and formulas built internationally.
Headshot of Mark Proctor
Exclusive Build an Automated File Tracking System
  • 29 Jul 2026
  • Mark Proctor
In this article, Mark Proctor explores how to remove version chaos by using file management standards and automation to track file availability and updates.
Giles Male and Fay Bordbar
Exclusive From codebreaking to spreadsheets: what Bletchley Park can teach today’s Excel users
  • 27 Jul 2026
  • Giles Male and Fay Bordbar
What can Bletchley Park teach today’s Excel users? From a history of wartime codebreaking to modern spreadsheets, this article explores why the challenge has always been the same: turning messy, fast-moving information into insight that helps people make better decisions.
Liam Bastick
Exclusive Automated Grouping
  • 23 Jul 2026
  • Liam Bastick
Liam Bastick discusses Automated Grouping as a preferred option to produce summaries of spreadsheet reports, without the reconciliation issues that may arise with using separate worksheets for these reports.
Displaying 1-20 of 931 results

Excel Community archive

This archive of Excel Community content from the ION platform will allow you to read the content of the articles but the functionality on the pages is limited. The ION search box, tags and navigation buttons on the archived pages will not work. Pages will load more slowly than a live website. You may be able to follow links to other articles but if this does not work, please return to the archive search.

Search the archive View the index
A colourful wooden abacus placed on a wooden surface, featuring multiple rows of beads in vibrant colours used for counting or basic arithmetic.