Use Copilot in Excel to Explain and Check a Flag Column
For Fraud Examiner / Financial Investigators ·
What This Does
A flag column inherited from an older case, or from a colleague who has since moved on, is hard to trust until someone has read it line by line. Copilot in Excel can read the formula and describe it in plain words: what it compares, which kinds of rows it marks, and where it might miss. You paste that description into your working notes, then prove each claim with your own filter or formula.
Before You Start
- Copilot in Excel is available to you. Microsoft's page says Copilot may not appear if it is not included with your Microsoft 365 subscription or is turned off by your organization's settings. It needs an eligible Microsoft 365 Copilot license through your employer. Ask your IT admin if you do not see the Copilot icon, and check Microsoft's pricing pages if you want the license details.
- Your employer's AI policy allows Copilot on case workbooks. If you are not sure, ask your supervisor or compliance before opening anything real.
- You are working in a copy of the workbook, not the original. Keep the original untouched as the record.
- The copy holds coded or invented rows only: vendor codes such as "V-12", payment IDs such as "P-101", no names, account numbers or addresses. If the real workbook is not approved for Copilot, copy the header row and a handful of invented rows. The formula is what you are studying, and it behaves the same on invented data.
Steps
1. Open Copilot in chat mode
Open the copy of the workbook. Select the Copilot icon in the lower-right corner of Excel, which is where Microsoft's page places it. Microsoft's page says Copilot in Excel offers edit, plan and chat modes, and that it opens in edit mode by default. Edit mode changes the workbook directly. Chat mode keeps responses inside the chat and, per the page, analyzes your data without changing the workbook. Switch to chat mode before you send anything. The page does not name the exact control for switching, so look in the Copilot pane for the mode choice and confirm the label reads chat.
What you should see: The Copilot pane open beside the sheet, with chat mode selected.
2. Ask for an explanation of the formula
Click a cell in the flag column so the context is clear. Then type your request. Name the column by its header, not only its letter.
Explain the formula in the Flag column in plain language. Say what it compares, what kinds of rows it flags, and what kinds of rows it would not flag even if they look similar to a person. Do not change the workbook.
What you should see: A written explanation in the chat pane. Nothing in the sheet changes.
3. Ask where it might go wrong
Send a second request in the same chat.
List any rows where this formula might flag incorrectly or miss a row, and say what in the data causes it. Use the payment IDs so I can find each row.
Treat every row it names as a lead to check, not as a finding. The answer may be incomplete, and it may name rows that are fine.
4. Prove each claim in the workbook
For every statement Copilot makes, build your own check. A count with COUNTIFS, a filter on the flag column, or a helper column using TRIM and EXACT will do. If Copilot says two rows were missed because of trailing spaces, filter on the vendor code and look at the cells. Paste the explanation into your working notes only after you have confirmed it, and mark any line you could not confirm.
Real Example
Scenario: You inherit a payments workbook with a Flag column and no documentation. The data below is invented. The formula in F2, filled down to F7, is:
=IF(COUNTIFS($B$2:$B$7,B2,$D$2:$D$7,D2)>1,"Possible duplicate","")
| Payment ID | Vendor Code | Payment Date | Amount | Approver |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P-101 | V-12 | 2026-03-02 | 4800 | Approver D |
| P-102 | V-07 | 2026-03-03 | 1250 | Approver D |
| P-103 | V-12 | 2026-03-09 | 4800 | Approver E |
| P-104 | V-31 | 2026-03-10 | 2975 | Approver D |
| P-105 | V-07 | 2026-03-11 | 1250 | Approver D |
| P-106 | "V-12 " (trailing space) | 2026-03-16 | 4800 | Approver E |
What you type: The two requests from steps 2 and 3.
What a sound explanation should say: The formula counts rows with the same vendor code and the same amount. A count above 1 means the row shares both with at least one other row, so P-101, P-102, P-103 and P-105 get the flag (4 rows). It ignores dates, so two payments months apart would flag the same way. It also flags the first payment of a pair, not only the later one.
What to check against your own work: P-106 has the same amount as P-101 and P-103, but the trailing space in its vendor code means the match fails and it is not flagged. A check such as =COUNTIFS(B2:B7,"V-12*",D2:D7,4800) returns 3, which shows three rows share that vendor and amount while the Flag column only marks two. If Copilot's explanation misses the date blindness or the trailing-space gap, the notes you paste should say so. If it claims the formula catches P-106, it is wrong, and your filter proves it.
Tips
- Edit mode is for copies and for formulas you want rewritten. Use it on the original only if your supervisor has told you it is fine, and even then keep a saved copy first.
- Ask Copilot for the explanation in the words you would use with a supervisor: "what it compares, what it ignores." Those two lists are what reviewers ask about.
- Date the explanation in your notes and record that it is AI-assisted and verified by you. The workbook and your own checks remain the record.
Tool interfaces change. If a button has moved, look for the Copilot icon in the lower-right corner of Excel, and for the mode choice inside the Copilot pane. Source: Microsoft's "Get started with Copilot in Excel" support page, reviewed 2026-10-13.