What problem does it solve?
Every finance professional knows the feeling: It’s 11am, before a board meeting, you’re staring at a 40-tab financial model someone else built, a formula is broken, and you have no idea where to even start looking. And when leadership asks “what happens to our PAT if margins drop 3%?”, rebuilding the scenario manually takes another hour you don’t have.
Claude in Excel puts an AI analyst directly inside your spreadsheet, designed to read formulas, tabs and dependencies across a workbook before responding to queries. It operates within the live file, cites the cells behind each answer, and makes changes only with user approval.
How to access: Install from the Microsoft Marketplace → search “Claude by Anthropic for Excel” → sign in with your Claude account (Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise plan required)
Claude in Excel can help you:
• Explain any model instantly: Ask what’s driving a number and get a cell-cited answer in seconds
• Test scenarios live: Change an assumption and watch the entire P&L recalculate with every impact highlighted
• Debug errors in moments: Trace a #REF! or #VALUE! error to its source without manually checking every formula
Example:
A CFO’s team is reviewing quarterly projections before a leadership presentation. The EBITDA margin has shifted unexpectedly and no one can explain why. Here’s how Claude in Excel helps from diagnosis to board-ready output:
#1 : Explain What’s Driving a Number
The team can’t explain why the EBITDA margin dropped between two quarters. Instead of tracing formulas manually, they ask:
“Why is the EBITDA margin lower in Q3 versus Q2? Trace the cause and cite the specific rows driving the change.”
Claude reads the entire model and responds in seconds, pointing to the exact cost line that expanded as a percentage of revenue, with cell references included.
#2: Live Scenario Testing
Leadership wants to know the downside impact before the board meeting:
“Change the EBITDA margin assumption to 30% and show me the new full-year PAT. Highlight every cell that changes.”
Claude updates the assumption, recalculates the entire P&L cascade, highlights impacted cells in yellow, and summarizes the PAT variance without touching a single formula structure.
#3 Project Risk Flagging
The CFO wants to know which projects need urgent attention before quarter-end:
“Which projects have collected less than 50% of their bookings value? Name them, state the uncollected amount, and flag which is most at risk given its deadline.”
Claude scans the full portfolio tracker and returns a ranked risk summary — no pivot table needed.
#4 Board Commentary, Written Instantly
With numbers finalized, the team needs a CFO commentary:
“Using the FY25 actuals and FY26 projections in this sheet, write a 3-sentence board commentary summarizing performance, outlook, and the key assumption to watch.”
Claude drafts it directly from the live cell values- factual, cited, and ready to present.
What makes Claude in Excel special?
• It reads your whole workbook: Not just the sheet you’re on- every tab, every formula, every dependency, all at once
• Cell-level citations: Every answer references the exact cells behind it, so you can verify the logic rather than just trust it.
• Connected to live financial data: Via MCP connectors, it can pull in FactSet, S&P Global, and Bloomberg data directly into your model.
Mint’sAI tool of the week is excerpted from Leslie D’Monte’s weekly TechTalk newsletter. Subscribe to Mint’s newsletters to get them directly in your email inbox.
Note: The tools and analysis featured in this section demonstrated clear value based on our internal testing. Our recommendations are entirely independent and not influenced by the tool creators.
Jaspreet Bindra is co-founder and CEO, and Anuj Magazine is co-founder, of AI&Beyond.
