Microsoft Copilot for Finance

Name: Microsoft Copilot for Finance
Rating: 4.2 (350 reviews)

Use Copilot and AI to automate reporting, budgeting, working capital, and risk insights

Created byEduardo Aponte, PhD

Last updated 11/2025

English

English [Auto],

What you'll learn

Will understand what Microsoft Copilot can and cannot do in finance, and how it relies on data quality and ethical use.
Use Copilot in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to draft narratives, analyze data, and create executive-ready presentations.
Design smart document workflows to automate invoices, contracts, and recurring finance reports with Copilot.
Will map Copilot and AI tools to core finance processes across reporting, close, FP&A, and treasury.
Strengthen compliance, internal controls, and audit readiness by leveraging Copilot for documentation and traceability.
Apply Copilot-driven insights to optimize costs, budgets, working capital, and everyday risk and portfolio decisions.

Course content

4 sections • 17 lectures • 2h 10m total length

What Copilot Can (and Can’t) Do in Finance6:53
Microsoft Copilot integrates with Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Word to accelerate reporting, planning, and executive storytelling with draft narratives and actionable items.
Finance Data 101 & Ethical Guardrails10:13
Leverage generative AI as an autonomous accountant to read invoices and emails, extract fields, reconcile with ERP data, and generate SQL and Python snapshots, with guardrails and human review.
Types of AI Tools and Techniques for Finance8:02
Explore the toolbox of ai tools for finance, including ml, nlp, rpa, and optimization, from credit scoring and cash forecasting to invoice data extraction and compliance.
Use-Case Portfolio Across the Finance Cycle7:28
Build a use case portfolio for the finance cycle with Copilot supporting reporting, budgeting, forecasting, cost and profitability, and working capital, while you own the numbers.

How Copilot works3:27
Discover how Microsoft Copilot integrates with Microsoft 365 apps to automate tasks, generate content, and drive data-driven decisions across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and more.
Microsoft Copilot in Word12:14
Learn how to activate Copilot Pro in Office and draft with Copilot in Word, using detailed prompts to create job offers and financial reports, then edit outputs for accuracy.
Copilot in Word part 27:06
Copilot in Word part 2 shows loading a PDF, converting it to Word, and summarizing a World Bank report into ten main ideas. It highlights sustainable, inclusive, and resilient growth.
Microsoft Copilot in Excel9:46
Learn to use Microsoft Copilot in Excel to analyze table data, autosave on OneDrive, create pivot tables and charts, add computed columns like profits, and follow step-by-step prompts.
Copilot in Excel part 26:44
Learn to use Copilot in Excel to sort and filter by column names, create computed columns with conditional formatting, and insert charts and new sheets, while noting Copilot is preliminary.
Microsoft Copilot in Power Point7:49
Learn how Microsoft Copilot can generate a full PowerPoint presentation from prompts, tailor topics like digital marketing for Instagram, include speaker notes, add images, and control slides, transitions, and animations.
Copilot in Power Point part 27:33
Explore how Copilot in PowerPoint part 2 creates templates or Word-based presentations, generates a 12-slide deck with notes, and supports summarizing, organizing by theme, and designer-based customization.

Smart Document Processing7:52
Learn how smart document processing uses OCR, ML, and AI to convert invoices and bank statements into structured JSON data, validate fields, detect duplicates, and route for posting or review.
Reporting and Narrative Generation8:24
Learn to generate reporting and narrative generation with retrieval augmented generation to produce executive tone narratives, kpi decks, and cash flow commentary from raw data with data sources and timestamps.
Compliance, controls & Audit Readiness5:27
Develop a compliant audit-ready workflow by building a secure knowledge base of policies and controls, enabling retrieval augmented generation with cited sources, and automating evidence collection and immutable logs.

Cost & Budget Optimization7:47
Use Gen AI and simple Excel tools to optimize costs and budgets through spend analysis, vendor normalization, clustering, and scenario testing that maximize return within a budget.
Working-Capital & Treasury Insights7:02
Leverage generative ai to read invoices, post shipment notes and policies, draft prioritized actions, and optimize dso, early payments, supplier negotiations, and cash forecasting.
Everyday Risk & Portfolio Management6:25
Use diversification across stocks, bonds, and inflation hedges to lower risk, then apply value at risk to size losses and test scenarios with large language models for ETF plans.

Requirements

No previous experience is necessary.

Description

Welcome to “Microsoft Copilot for Finance”. If you work in finance and want to stop spending your days copying, cleaning and reconciling data, this course is for you. Here, you’ll learn how to turn Copilot into a practical assistant across your entire finance cycle—not just a flashy AI toy.

In Section 1: Copilot Fundamentals for Finance, you’ll understand what Copilot can and can’t do, how it depends on clean finance data, and which ethical guardrails you must put in place. You’ll also map the main AI techniques to classic finance tasks and build a use-case portfolio across reporting, close, FP&A, and more.

In Section 2: Microsoft 365 Powered with Copilot, you’ll see Copilot in action in Word, Excel and PowerPoint: drafting memos, building analyses, summarizing large workbooks and turning numbers into clear executive narratives.

In Section 3: Automate Routine Finance Workflows, you’ll learn to process invoices and contracts with smart document workflows, generate recurring reports and narratives, and strengthen compliance, controls and audit readiness with better documentation.

Finally, Section 4: Optimize Decisions focuses on value. You’ll use Copilot to explore cost and budget optimization, unlock working-capital and treasury insights, and support everyday risk and portfolio decisions.

By the end of the course, you won’t just “know about” Copilot—you’ll have a concrete playbook to apply it safely and effectively in your finance role. I invite you to join us and start building your AI-powered finance toolkit today.

Microsoft Copilot for Finance

What you'll learn

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Course content

Copilot Fundamentals for Finance4 lectures • 33min

Microsoft 365 Powered with Copilot7 lectures • 55min

Automate Routine Finance Workflows3 lectures • 22min

Optimize Decisions3 lectures • 21min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: