Quickly estimate sales data using Copilot in Excel

Hi everyone, this is part 9 in a series of posts to show you some of the things that are possible to do with Copilot in Excel.

 

I need to perform a quick estimate of book sales for the rest of the fiscal year. Let’s see how Copilot can help. We recently finished the first quarter of our fiscal year and I want to use the growth numbers year over year for the first quarter to estimate the remaining 3 quarters this year.

I ask Copilot:

 

Add new columns for quarters 2-4 in FY25 using the growth between FY24Q1 and FY25Q1 to estimate

 

Copilot in Excel pane showing the above prompt and the response below

Looking at K16:P21, here are 3 formula columns to review and insert in Columns Q, R, and S:

1. FY25Q2

Projects the sales for the second quarter of fiscal year 2025 by adjusting the sales from the second quarter of fiscal year 2024 based on the growth rate between the first quarters of fiscal years 2024 and 2025.

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

2. FY25Q3

Projects the sales for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 by adjusting the sales from the third quarter of fiscal year 2024 based on the percentage change between the first quarters of fiscal years 2024 and 2025.

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

3. FY25Q4

Projects the sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025 by adjusting the sales from the same quarter in fiscal year 2024 based on the growth rate between the first quarters of fiscal years 2024 and 2025.

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

 

I click on the Show Explanation arrow to see what the first suggested formula is doing:

 

Copilot in Excel pane showing the explanation of the first formula, text below.

 

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

Estimates the revenue for "FY25Q2" in the table by using the following steps:

• Multiplies the value in the "FY24Q2" column by the result of the following calculation.
• Subtracts the value in the "FY24Q1" column from the value in the "FY25Q1" column.
• Divides the result by the value in the "FY24Q1" column to find the growth rate.
• Adds 1 (unitless) to the growth rate to adjust the "FY24Q2" value accordingly.

 

 

That looks correct, so I click on the Insert columns button to add the 3 new calculated columns:

Table of book sales by Category with new columns for FY25Q2, FY25Q3, and FY25Q4

 

I now have some basic estimates that I can use for a discussion that I have with my team this afternoon.

 

Stay tuned,

Microsoft Excel Team

 

*Disclaimer: If you try these types of prompts and they do not work as expected, it is most likely due to our gradual feature rollout process. Please try again in a few weeks.